Exporting “Traditional Values,” p .3

TheA PUBLICATION OF POLITICAL R PublicEyeESEARCH ASSOCIATES Winter 2009/Spring 2010 •Volume XXV, No.1 $5.25 The New Christian Zionism and the Jews A Love/Hate Relationship

By Rachel Tabachnick n late October, Holocaust survivor and INobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel spoke at a Christians United for Israel (CUFI) event hosted by the controversial Christian Zionist John Hagee at his Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. Interna - tionally broadcast on GodTV, Hagee presented $9 million in donations to 29 Israeli and U.S. Jewish organizations. 1 Hagee is one of the world’s most success - ful televangelists and a prolific author who prophesizes that apocalyptic wars and the s e g

a migration of Jews to the holy land will help m I

y trigger the return of Jesus and his thousand- t t e G

/ year reign on earth. P F A

/ Wiesel joins a long list of Jews and y r r u Israelis who show no discomfort at being C n u

a in the center of someone else’s apocalyp - h S tic religious vision. Making common cause Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill proposed in Parliament in October has sparked protests around the world, including this one outside the country’s embassy in London in December. New Christian Zionism and Jews continues on page 23 The U.S. Christian Right and IN THIS ISSUE Editorial ...... 2 the Attack on Gays in Africa Letter to the Editor ...... 2 By Kapya Kaoma Commentary ...... 3 The Uganda Story Agenda.” The seminar’s very title revealed Intelligence Fusion Centers ...... 6 or two days in early March 2009, Ugan - its claim: LGBT people and activists are Anti-abortion Strategy in Fdans flocked to the Kampala Triangle engaged in a well thought-out plan to take the Age of Obama ...... 15 Hotel for the Family Life Network’s “Sem - over the world. The U.S. culture wars had Reports in Review ...... 39 inar on Exposing the Homosexuals’ come to Africa with a vengeance. Eyes Right ...... 41 Gays in Africa continues on page 31

THE PUBLIC EYE 1 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

EDITORIAL ThePublicEye t has been a pleasure editing the Public Eye for the past four-and-a-half years, and meet - Publisher Tarso Luís Ramos Iing committed writers who want to share a more analytical, less attack-driven view of Editor the U.S. Right. So yes I am moving on, but not without taking the time to share a bit of Abby Scher, Ph.D what I learned. Design/layout The Public Eye has confirmed my belief that research and thoughtful analysis can enhance Hird Graphic Design our struggle to make a just world. The latest example can be found right in this issue: Printing Kapya Kaoma’s research on the U.S. Christian Right’s influence in Africa. Kaoma Red Sun Press reports that while the Christian Right stirs up culture war sentiment against gays in Africa, Editorial Board Chip Berlet • Pam Chamberlain they also succeed in casting gay rights as a Western import, part of a neocolonial agenda Thomas Cincotta • Frederick Clarkson to take over the continent. Those who defend LGBT people are too easily dismissed as David Cunningham • Gillian Kane submitting to Western domination. This has immediate implications for strategy, and Surina Khan • Jean Hardisty • Roberto Lovato Richard Meagher • Tarso Luís Ramos Kaoma encourages Americans concerned about the anti-homosexuality bills in Uganda Abby Scher • Holly Sklar and Rwanda to challenge the U.S. Christian Right here who might actually have some influence there. His acute sense that Rick Warren must speak out against the Uganda PRA Political Research Associates bill, which would subject LGBT people to the death penalty for certain actions, sparked Founder and President Emerita a successful national campaign that left me in awe of the power of keen insight. Jean V. Hardisty, Ph.D I’ve also learned that some progressives want to know about the Christian Right only Staff to make fun of it. Increased partisanship and the cartoon communication nurtured by Tarso Luís Ramos, the blogosphere all contribute to this tendency. I cringe while watching smug web videos President Alen Abdula, Data/Web Master trashing true believers, such as women standing in line waiting for Sarah Palin on her Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst recent book tour. I become impatient at those who dismiss the Right as “antiwoman,” Pam Chamberlain, Senior Researcher overlooking how women leaders and even feminists on the Right legitimize what I con - Thomas Cincotta, Project Director Kapya Kaoma, Project Director sider horrendous policy ideas. Our passions and certainties can be distorting, so we fail Cindy King, Operations Manager to see important trends reshaping politics, like evangelical youth’s skepticism about the Charles Ocitti, Finance Director old timers (where will this lead?), or the largely White anti-abortion movement’s Maria Planansky, Communications/ Development Assistant attempts to reach African American church goers, all covered in these pages. Abby Scher, Editorial Director My background researching the secular Right during McCarthyism did not prepare Interns me for all I had to learn about the religious Right to do my job well. Thank you to all Aram Boghosian who were so patient in teaching me about this crucial part of American political life. And James Huettig Elizabeth Newman stay tuned for a new Public Eye, as it begins to cover the success stories coming from pro - Jamie Urrutia gressive movements more systematically.This double winter 2009/spring 2010 issue gives Board of Directors the publisher time to reorient the publication under new leadership. We all owe our thanks Surina Khan Pardis Mahdavi to Political Research Associates for remaining dedicated to presenting in depth, high qual - Supriya Pillai ity analysis of the Right even as our media world feeds on sound bites and quick takes Emelia Rallapalli that often lead nowhere close to justice. Marcy Westerling – Abby Scher The Public Eye is published by Political Research Associates. Annual subscriptions are $21.00 for individuals and non-profit organizations, $10.00 for students and low-income individuals, and $36.00 To the Editor, for libraries and institutions. Single issues, $5.25. I’m a fairly new reader of Public Eye magazine and want to commend you on the Fall Outside U.S., Canada, and Mexico, add $9.00 for surface delivery or $14.00 for air mail. 2009 issue. Please make checks payable to Political Research This is a wonderful example of a newsletter that is chock full of good information, Associates, 1310 Broadway, Suite 201, Somerville, Massachusetts 02144-1837. very attractively laid out, enriched with great graphics, and which makes a very positive 617.666.5300 fax: 617.666.6622 impression on the reader. All who have a hand in it deserve high praise. PRA is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. All I had not made the connection before between the religious right in the US and the donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. © Political Research Associates, 2010. anti-gay Christians in Africa. I believe you are correct that this alliance is an effort to hin - Website: www.publiceye.org To the Editor continues on page 38 All rights reserved. ISSN 0275-9322 ISSUE 66

THE PUBLIC EYE 2 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

COMMENTARY Exporting “Traditional Values” The World Congress of Families

By Gillian Kane n August, at the fifth World Congress of IFamilies (WCF) in Amsterdam, Austin Ruse, president of the New York-based Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-Fam) warned “that UN radi - cals in alliance with radical lawyers and judges and other advocates around the world are attempting the greatest power grab the world has even known.” 1 What they want, he continued, is to impose their nefarious agend a— support for abor - tion and gay right s— on unsuspecting developing countries thereby leading to a “tsunamic change in social policy and in the international system.” But when Ruse told the Congress that UN “radicals” want to “decide for all mankind the most intimate details of peo - ple’s lives…from their lofty and elite perches at the UN in New York, at the European Union in Brussels and other centers of international power,” he failed to mention that in fact he and likeminded conserva - tives are doing the very same thing. For the conservative World Congress of Families, the United Nations is a key battleground over abortion The U.S. Christian Right’s influence on and “family values .” international sexual and reproductive rights peaked at the beginning of the millen - Committee (NRLC) had for years worked World Congress of Families as they lose nium with the full support of President the international UN circuit trying to access to U.S. diplomats at the United George W. Bush. Before the Bush Admin - influence conservative Latin American Nations.They are scrambling to ensure the istration, conservative U.S. nongovern - and Muslim countries to find common viability of their cause in this shifting polit - mental organizations (NGOs) were mostly ground against abortion and gay rights. ical environment. relegated to the sidelines at United Nations Bush appointed many conservative The WCF is a coalition of leading inter - meetings, but they still managed to max - Christian Right lobbyists as U.S. repre - national advocates against abortion, repro - imize their networking in the UN hallways sentatives to the UN. The administration ductive and sexual rights that meets every where most of the lobbying takes place. also supported organizations like CWA, the few years to network and strategize. It is Conservative anti-abortion NGOs like C- Family Research Council, Focus on the coordinated by the Rockford, Illinois- Fam, Concerned Women for America Family and Priests for Life in gaining based Howard Center for Family, Religion (CWA), and the National Right to Life accreditation as UN NGO observers, & Society, led by the “natural family” which allowed them to directly lobby advocate Allan Carlson. 3 Past congresses Gillian Kane is senior policy advisor with the country representatives. 2 Barack Obama’s took place in reliably socially conservative international reproductive justice organi - presidency thus presents a direct threat to countries like Poland, Nigeria, and Mex - zation Ipas and a member of th e Public Eye these groups and their allies who are mem - ico, and drew hundreds and sometime editorial board. bers, contributors or participants in the thousands of participants. Organizing a

THE PUBLIC EYE 3 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye right-wing event in Amsterdam, a city coordinator of the local Dutch WCF organ - never been a movement with a particularly WCF organizers maintain has the “kind of izing committee, in his opening statement large or active base. Their ability to influ - culture traditionally minded people abhor,” said the WCF had been accused of being ence policy at the national and international is either a massive gesture of conciliation afraid to debate. That’s why he explained, levels comes not from the grassroots, but or a misguided effort to the WCF invited people rather from their well-connected and well- build on an emerging with differing views to par - established leadership.The WCF cospon - Dutch conservative move - ticipate. However, they had sors are a who’s who of the conservative ment. declined. Polinder then right-wing in the United States, many of Although the event did asked rhetorically, “So who’s whom were warmly embraced by the Bush not meet organizers’ expec - afraid to debate now?” Administration. In the last decade these tation s— the WCF pre - In fact, Dutch partici - individuals have nurtured conservative dicted 4,000 would show, pants with moderate views leadership in Eastern Europe and the devel - the real number barely on the family, LGBT rights oping world to promote a reactionary scratched 40 0— and it did and abortion did attend. agenda. not succeed in bringing in The issue lay not in their Two months following the August WCF, new Dutch converts or in lack of participation but its members were celebrating international fostering debate with rather in the WCF’s inabil - victories for the “natural family.” For years reproductive justice ity to accommodate their the WCF has decried what it sees as the activists, its impact is differing views into its plat - “hard-edged intolerance by the UN to tradi - nonetheless being felt in André Rouvoet, the Dutch Vice form. During the confer - tional values.” 7 In October, the United disparate places such as the Prime Minister and Minister for ence Austin Ruse twittered, Nations Human Rights Council approved Youth and Family, probably disap - United Nations, the Euro - pointed the World Congress of “Lots of off stage excitement a resolution proposed by Russia promot - pean Union, Albania, and Families audience when he said at the WCF.The local organ - ing “a better understanding of the tradi - Kenya. they should build bridges with izing committees are not tional values of humankind.” While not André Rouvoet, the those they oppose. American conservatives and defined in the resolution, traditional val - Dutch Vice Prime Minis - they produced an unac - ues, as understood by its promoters, means ter and Minister for Youth and Family, ceptable…Document that we had to get marriage between a man and a woman, and opened the Amsterdam WCF conference killed. A new document was produced by zero tolerance for abortion and homosex - with a tepid welcome message, giving tacit Allan Carlson that will be released today.” 4 uality, among other issues. government endorsement to the event. Ruse and others bullied their agenda into Rouvoet presented his video address even the WCF’s final document, congratulating though Dutch members of Parliament themselves that “in the end, the Congress asked him to reconsider. The parliamen - was a success.” 5 Not because it brought two The World Congress of tarians, while not opposed to hosting the opposing sides together, but because the congress in their country, were concerned event succeeded in inching Dutch public Families has money and about government participation in an discourse to the right. Indeed, the research event led by a coalition vehemently against department of the Dutch Christian connections built up abortion, same-sex relations and marriage, Reformed Party (SGP), a WCF participant, contraception, euthanasia, basically, the recommended that Dutch family policy during the Bush keystones of Dutch policy. legalize marriage only for a man and a Rouvoet’s plug for building bridges woman, impose stricter restrictions on Administration. between ideologically opposed social move - divorce, and take away the rights of lesbian ments, and his call to “think about how we and gay couples to adopt. 6 can live together in a multicultural society But one policy proposal does not a sea with differing attitudes of the family” was change make and it’s certainly too early to Julie de Rivero, Human Rights Watch’s met with hostile silence and a smattering declare the Right’s ascendency in the advocacy director, is very concerned that of forced applause. Netherlands following the WCF. Simi - such a “resolution fails to recognize that Hosting the event in the Netherlands larly, despite the poor attendance, it is also many values that political and cultural allowed the WCF to claim it was extend - too early to sound the death knell for the leaders exalt as ‘traditional’ can stand at odds ing itself to the opposition and when the WCF, as some progressives have. with international human rights law.” 8 overture failed, it placed the burden of The World Congress of Families, which According to WCF veteran Sharon failure on progressives. Simon Polinder, began taking shape in the mid-1990s, has Slater of the Arizona-based Family Watch

THE PUBLIC EYE 4 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

International, the real intent behind the res - in the courts: defeat them in Parliaments; olution is to “push back against UN mem - defeat them in the universities; defeat them ber states that are seeking to overturn in the international institutions. Go forth.” traditional values based on morality under Ruse received a standing ovation. I the guise of protecting ‘human rights.’” The Russian resolution was surprising given the country’s general support for End Notes women’s rights. When asked about the 1 Austin Ruse, “The Effects of the UN on the Families of Developed Nations,” remarks to World Congress of WCF’s role in the resolution Larry Jacobs, Families V. http://worldcongress.org/wcf5.spkrs/wcf5.ruse.htm WCF Managing Director, noted that 2 Esther Kaplan, With God on their Side, The New Press, “There wasn’t any secret conspiracy. The 2004, p. 234. interesting thing about the WCF is that we 3 For more on Carlson and the “natural family” ideology, see Jeremy Adam Smith, “Living in the Gap: The Ideal are just bringing groups together. And I will and the Reality of the Christian Right Family,” The mention that there’s a group standing up Public Eye, Winter 2007. http://www.publiceye.org/ for Eastern traditional values and Russia has magazine/v22n4/christian_family.html 4 a big leadership role.” Indeed, the idea for http://twitter.com/austinruse 5 a “world congress of families” began in the Austin Ruse, “The World Congress of Families and the Limits of Dialog,” The CatholicThing, August 21, 2009. mid-1990s when Allan Carlson, WCF http://www.thecatholicthing.org/index.php?option=com_ Conservative Catholic activist Austin Ruse told Secretariat, met in Russia with Dr. Ivan content&task=view&id=2079&Itemid=2 the World Congress of Families that UN “radicals” 6 Schevchenko, head of that country’s right- want to “decide for all mankind the most intimate Jaco van den Brink, “Government and Family: Influence or Intrusion? A comparative study on family policies in wing Orthodox Brotherhood of Scientists details of people’s lives.” an international perspective,” Guido de Bres-Foundation, and Specialists. Gouda, The Netherlands, August 2009, p. 65. Austin Ruse’s idea that UN radicals are 7 See Gwendolyn C. Landolt’s remarks at the 1999 Con - gress, for instance. http://www.worldcongress.org/wcf2_ working to stamp out the “natural family” Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, is a spkrs/wcf2_landolt.htm?search=”traditional%20 presents neither a nuanced nor accurate WCF spokesperson; in 2004 she com - values”&opt=EXACT view of what actually takes place in the mented that “AIDS is God’s vengeance for 8 “Human Rights Council: ‘Traditional Values’ Vote and homosexuality.” Gaza Overshadow Progress,” Human Rights Watch, United Nations or behind the scenes. U.S. October 2, 2009. http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/ Christian Right conservatives may no 10/05/un-human-rights-council-traditional-values-vote- longer have presidential support, but they and-gaza-overshadow-progress 9 Sharon Slater, Stand for the Family, (Gilbert, Ariz.: Ingle - have made sufficient strides during the stone Publishing, 2009), p. 150. Bush years to maximize their international In October, the UN 10 “ADF-allied attorneys reach milestone, donate $100M contacts. As Sharon Slater explains, “at of pro bono work for religious liberty,” Alliance Defense the international level, we join with pro - Fund, October 12, 2009. http://www.alliancedefense - fund.org/news/pressrelease.aspx?cid=5092 family groups in other countries at the Human Rights Council World Congress of Families conferences to network and strategize how to protect the pleased the WCF when family. At the UN we participate in a pro - family coalition.” 9 it approved a resolution And it’s not just connections; WCF members have money backing them. One promoting “a better of its members is the Christian-Right- oriented Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), understanding of traditional which litigates internationally for religious freedom.The most recent ADF tax returns values of humankind.” show its total revenue for 2007 was more than $30 million. 10 The Reproductive Rights In addition to the UN, the WCF is also Activist Resource Kit making inroads at the European Com - Ruse ended his Amsterdam WCF pres - mission and the European Parliament. entation by encouraging participants to is now available online at Anna Záborská, a Slovakian member of the “Go forth, my friends, go forth. Defend www.publiceye.org! European Parliament and, incongruously your countries. Defend your Churches. enough, chairwoman of the Committee on Defend your families. Defeat the radicals

THE PUBLIC EYE 5 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye Intelligence Fusion Centers A De-Centralized National Intelligence Agency By Thomas Cincotta n a 2007 article for the FBI Law Enforce - Iment Bulletin, Colonel Bart Johnson explained how state-level intelligence “fusion centers” collect data from a range of sources and connect “seemingly unre - lated” incidents that could be precursors of terrorist activity. At the time, Colonel John - son led the New York State (NYS) Intelli - gence Center in Albany, where officers from a range of federal, state and local police agencies as well as civilian analysts function as a “nerve center” for all calls into a statewide terrorism tip line. He explains s

how in July 2004, his fusion center received e g a m

an anonymous call warning of a college sen - I y t t ior leading the campus Muslim Student e G / P

Association, who, the caller claimed, had F A / s d expressed hatred for America and was only r a h c i

in the country to teach Islam. R . J l u

While researching the case, a state a P trooper found a link between this student President George W. Bush signs the Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2004 in October 2003, and a report of a traffic stop involving two launching fusion center financing. Middle Eastern men, who claimed to be Israeli musicians looking for a nearby syn - Colonel Bart Johnson oversees the entire Task Force based on national origin, a agogue where they were to perform for a nationwide network of 72 fusion centers traffic stop, and tenuous links to the orig - wedding. A license plate check of their vehi - as Principal Deputy Under Secretary for inal “suspect.” Even worse, it is likely that cle linked the registrant to the same address Intelligence and Analysis of the U.S. all these details reside somewhere in a gov - as the university student. 1 The intelligence Department of Homeland Security ernment database, easily retriev - analysts then forwarded this information (DHS). able using names and other to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force to Despite a chorus of official key words. investigate further. assurances that fusion cen - The New York and We don’t know what happened next ters focus solely on illegal 71 other statewide because Colonel Johnson ends his story acts, this incident shows intelligence bureaus there. But even with these sparse details, his how police forces can blur scattered across the story raises concerns about racial and eth - the distinctions between country vastly extend nic profiling, violations of free speech, and activists and terrorists, and the breadth and pene - the intrusive power of fusion centers.These between immigrants and tration of government concerns loom even larger now that former violent extremists. 2 Here, the surveillance of our society. NYS intelligence center not only Now six years old, the struc - Thomas Cincotta is civil liberties program prompted a State Police investigation ture of this network is becoming director of Political Research Associates and into a university student, whose politi - clearer despite the woefully inadequate a member of the Public Eye editorial board. cally oriented speech and religious identity public exposure of its activities. This net - His blog, Liberty Beat, tracking repression triggered suspicion, but also initiated an work constitutes a nascent de facto national can be read at www.publiceye.org. investigation by the FBI Joint Terrorism intelligence agency, whose decentralized

THE PUBLIC EYE 6 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

structure diminishes transparency and activist s—and Richard Nixon’s enemies ters in Idaho, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Vir - accountability. Without effective over - list. By the 2001 attacks, memories of the gin Islands are in the final stages of devel - sight, a narrowly defined mission, and domestic spying controversies of the 1970s opment. new legal structures, the capacity of fusion had dimmed and calls for a national intel - centers to undermine fundamental free - ligence agency reemerged. Congressional What is a Fusion Center? doms could grow unchecked. sponsors of legislation that created the usion centers gather, mine, and “fuse” Department of Homeland Security wanted Fdata to help police fight crime and FBI A Locally Owned and Operated a fully functional intelligence organiza - agents stop terrorism. Data streams in from Intelligence Machine tion within DHS, but the Bush adminis - multiple sources, including intelligence he Department of Homeland Secu - tration preferred to realign organizations groups, the federal government, other states, Trity’s network of fusion centers oper - already under the authority of the FBI private databases, and open sources. More - ate under the auspices of state police or even director, director of Central Intelligence, over, analysts scrutinize daily crime and 911 large local police forces, thus sidestepping and the new director of national intelli - reports for patterns. Tips may come in to the guidelines enacted under the Privacy Act gence. As a result, Congress did not initially fusion center tip lines from citizens or of 1974 that limit information sharing by give DHS itself the capacity to produce raw police officers. Fusion centers also respond federal agencies. Yet fusion centers have a intelligence. 4,5 But today fusion centers to requests for analysis from law enforce - national command center feel, with mosaics give DHS the capacity to produce, not just ment agencies in the field, primarily inves - of television monitors, and desks for all the receive, intelligence. tigators seeking to spot trends in areas like police agents assigned to work together and drug crime, gang activity, or theft. enjoy face tim e— the county sheriff, local If the fusion center generates or receives police officers, the FBI, National Guard information determined to have a “poten - (restricted by law to drug-related mis - Fusion centers constitute a tial nexus” to terrorism, the center sends sions), state police, Department of Home - it upstream to the “information sharing land Security, and the civilian intelligence new piece in a vastly more environment” for other agencies to review. analysts. The FBI field office may rent Local police and FBI JointTerrorismTask space to fusion centers, and even helps powerful police apparatus. Forces, not the fusion centers, are respon - run the Los Angeles fusion center, but it sible for field investigations; although rarely plays a visibly lead role. Still, all the They give the executive some, such as the Massachusetts Com - analysts are tied into federal information- monwealth Fusion Center, possess an sharing networks. branch an incredible investigative capacity. 6 Since DHS launched the program in Fusion centers also aim to transform the 2003, these centers have evolved largely physical reach into state culture of the intelligence community by independently of one another. At first forcing staffers from diverse agencies to glance, smaller, more diffuse centers might and local communities. work with each other.The civilian analysts seem to pose a smaller threat to civil lib - come from a variety of backgrounds, con - erties than a KGB-like national force. In sisting primarily of retired law enforcement truth, however, this decentralized net - personnel, former military intelligence work may be more dangerous, because it Nurtured by more than $327 million in specialists, and veteran analysts from pre - obscures lines of authority, subverts Con - direct grant funding from 2004 through vious information sharing networks, such gressional oversight and privacy guide - 2008, fusion centers won an additional as the multi-jurisdictional High-Intensity lines, and turns numerous state and local $250 million in President Barack Obama’s Drug Trafficking Task Force. 7 police into intelligence agents. stimulus plan to be spent by 2010 on While the leadership and composition Around the world, the War onTerror has upgrading, modifying, or constructing of fusion centers vary state-by-state, all served as an “indispensable Trojan Horse sites. DHS currently has 41 officers retain specialists in visually mapping data [enabling] intensified surveillance for all deployed at fusion centers and hopes to have to discern patterns. 8 The degree of private sorts of purposes.” 3 As early as 1978, the an officer at every fusion center in the involvement in fusion centers is not known, Public Eye reported on an effort to bring the country by the end of 2010. By the end of but companies like Boeing have attended U.S. intelligence bureaucracy under one 2008, governors, mayors, and police chiefs fusion center briefings and even sought Director of National Intelligence that had established 72 operational centers high-level clearance. 9 InfraGard, a part - unsurprisingly failed amidst fresh memo - within the United States and its territories, nership between the FBI and the private ries of COINTELPR O—the FBI’s spying covering 49 states, the District of Colum - sector, has a permanent desk at the Los and dirty tricks program targeting bia, and Guam. Additionally, fusion cen - Angeles Joint Regional Intelligence

THE PUBLIC EYE 7 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye m o c . s n o o t r a c l a c i t i l o p / s e i l u g r a M y m m i J

Center.The Illinois Infrastructure Security tions, a state homeland security bureau may information sharing, and agency integration Alliance (ISA) seeks to link more than 70 operate the fusion center. In Los Angeles, as a “force multiplier” to tap into the poten - companies to the StatewideTerrorism and the Joint Regional Intelligence Center is led tial of 718,000 state and local police in over Intelligence Center via the Homeland by the LA County Sheriff, LAPD, and 15,000 departments, plus local emergency Security Information Network, a national FBI. responders, who could collect more data database with information from fusion Some states house their centers with the than 12,000 FBI agents. “There is never centers. 10 Fusion centers also have formal FBI’s JointTerrorismTask Force; others rent enough information when it comes to ter - information-sharing agreements with other space from the FBI field office itself. The rorism,” says Major Steven G. O’Donnell, states, nearby cities and towns, and federal physical integration of these agencie s— deputy superintendent of the Rhode Island agencies. for example, the Maryland State Police is State Police. 11 Unfortunately, the informa - Most fusion centers are managed by the headquartered in the same building as tion could be worthless and often is. state police. In Massachusetts, the State DH S— makes it more likely that infor - Fusion centers ostensibly complement Police commands the state fusion center, mation gathered in the course of political the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, while the Boston Police Department oper - spying will be shared with other agencies which bring together local law enforcement ates its own center fewer than forty miles and private partners. with federal law enforcement components away, the Boston Regional Intelligence like Immigration and Customs Enforce - Center. In Florida, the state Department Information Collection Squared ment, Customs and Border Patrol, the of Law Enforcement runs the fusion cen - usion centers facilitate the collection of Secret Service, andTransportation Security ter, while the Miami Dade Police Depart - Fmassive amounts of information. DHS Administration. These two parallel sys - ment maintains an active intelligence unit —itself comprised of 225,000 people in 22 tems for interagency coordination —one in southern Florida. In jurisdictions where separate agencie s—uses fusion centers, under DHS, the other under the Depart - the state police perform largely traffic func - ment of Justice —raise questions about

THE PUBLIC EYE 8 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye redundancy and waste. At the same time, But several years ago, we uncovered any infraction, as well as their innocent asso - though, the information from fusion cen - a cigarette-smuggling ring operating ciates and family members, may be scru - ters gives DHS leverage and access to other out of North Carolina. Members of tinized for possible links to terrorists. federal intelligence. the cell were transporting the ciga - According to a National Research Coun - It is a universe marked by redundancy. rettes across state borders to sell them cil study funded by DHS, “automated Information currently flows from fusion at a profit—and were using the prof - identification of terrorists through data centers into a national “information shar - its to support Hezbollah in Lebanon. mining (or any other known methodology) ing environment” such as the Homeland is neither feasible as an objective nor desir - Security Information Network (HSIN), And in August 2005, police in Tor - able as a goal of technology development Protected Critical Infrastructure Infor - rance, California, arrested two men efforts” because it inevitably conflicts with mation (PCII) Program, and Homeland in a gas station robbery. When they efforts to protect individual privacy. 15 Con - Secure Data Network (HSDN – for clas - searched the men’s apartment, they tinued funding for fusion centers as an sified data), which all sit alongside the found documents listing the antiterrorism tool should be premised on Department of Justice’s Regional Infor - an empirical assessment of whether data mation Sharing System (RISS), the FBI’s analysis at the local level truly prevents ter - Regional Data Exchange and eGuardian, The Virginia Fusion rorism. If this approach can only identify the Naval Investigative Services’ Law unsophisticated criminals and terrorists, an Enforcement Information Exchange Center identified outcome that police seem to be accom - (LInX) and the Law Enforcement Intelli - plishing without fusion center support, gence Unit’s (LEIU) LEO network (LEIU “subversive thought” fusion center practices and resources are not is a private organization of public law worth the risks to privacy and civil liberties. enforcement officials, including chiefs of as a marker for police). Mission Creep violent terrorism. lthough originally justified as an Fusion Centers Fall Short A antiterrorism initiative to improve usion centers appear to be falling short information sharing and collection at the on their original aim of detecting and local level, fusion centers rapidly drifted F addresses of U.S. military recruiting preventing terrorist plots by analyzing data toward an “all-crimes, all-hazards” policy stations and synagogues.They called for patterns suggesting terrorism. In theory, that is “flexible enough for use in all emer - the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and fusion center analysts take information gencies,” not just those specifically linked together we uncovered a terrorist from local-level criminal activity and ana - to terrorism. Mission creep is significant cell, disrupted a terrorist plot, and lyze it to determine whether any connec - because it undercuts the political justifi - possibly saved many lives. tion exists between seemingly typical ca tion for the network as a critical coun - low-level crime and terrorist activity. We never know when something terterrorism tool, and it opens the door for Caroline Fredrickson, legislative direc - that seems typical may be connected surveillance and repression of protected tor of the ACLU, notes that fusion centers to something treacherous. 13 free speech activity in order to “counter are a direct institutional outgrowth of radicalization” or otherwise prevent “dis - In each of those instances, however, intelligence-led policing, targeting poten - order” or nonviolent civil disobedience. traditional police work, not fusion centers, tial crime before it happens. 12 This means The vast majority of fusion centers now established the links between unlawful a shift from investigating crimes that already track major or organized crimes such as nar - acts and terrorism (see box on Torrance). occurred. John Pistole, Deputy Director of cotics, violence and gangs, sexual offenses, In practice, fusion centers are using their the FBI, invoked two oft-cited events that or crimes that may be used to support ter - data systems to find missing persons or solve provide ideological justification for track - rorism efforts, but may not. Rather than traditional crime; they are reacting to ing crimes and individuals not usually each department or squad having its own events more than preventing crime.Their associated with terrorist activity: databases, fusion centers allow access to analysts respond to incoming requests, multiple databases and sources of intelli - For instance, fusion centers are keep - suspicious activity reports, and/or finished gence; the drug squad in one community ing tabs on criminal activity—every - information/intelligence products, and can share information with the anti-gang thing from tax evasion to cigarette rely on existing understanding of problem task force in another, picking up on patterns smuggling to robbery. On the surface, areas to pull out data and patterns. 14 that may suggest an emerging threat as these may seem like relatively low- Further, the logic of this network gangs set up to move into a new market or level crimes that only have a local approach means that those who commit impact. distribute new contraband. In addition,

THE PUBLIC EYE 9 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

TORRANCE:THE FUSION CENTERS’ CREATION MYTH A string of robberies in southern California in 2005 by two people Fullerton, east of Torrance in Orange County. Washington, with an interest in violent jihad has taken on mythic importance dressed in a dark hooded sweatshirt and carrying a shotgun, robbed in the drive to develop fusion centers; it has become a creation the clerk, according to the complaint. Police arrested the two men story with ideological force. Counterterrorism professionals retell and then searched Washington’s apartment in South Los Angeles. the tale of the Torrance gas station terrorism investigation, and media outlets uncritically report it as “the most celebrated exam - During that search, Torrance police officers found documents ple” of the success of a fusion center. outlining an imminent attack, lists of potential targets, knives, bulletproof vests, and jihadist propaganda material that wasn’t Bart Johnson, who now heads the DHS Intelligence & Analysis available from the usual sources on the Internet, investigators said. division, FBI Deputy Director John Pistole, and Michael Down - ing, the Deputy Chief and Commanding Officer of the Los Ange - Almost immediately, one of the officers involved in the search, les Police Department’s (LAPD) Counter-terrorism Department, who had been trained to spot terrorist warning signs, called local all invoke Torrance as the reason why fusion centers are vital in counterterrorism officials. The L.A. anti-terrorist apparatus helping agencies gain a more comprehensive picture of the threats swung into high gear with more than 200 federal and local inves - tigators working the case. According to an FBI affidavit, Washing - they face. 34 Journalist Judith Miller breathlessly wrote about Tor - ton told investigators that he led an “Islamic council,” which was rance in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, 35 and a National Journal article on L.A.’s Joint Regional Intelligence Center planning violent jihad in the United States “to respond to the repeated the story of how virtually every agency in the area oppression of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan by the U.S. 37 jumped on the investigation after investigators found jihadist government.” 36 literature in the home of a robbery suspect. Investigators tied Washington to Kevin James, a former Hoover According to the myth created by the Torrance incident, fusion Street Crip gang member who, while in prison, founded a group center experts analyze data from many sources to reveal links to called Jam’yyat Al-Islam Al-Saheeh (JIS). While serving a ten-year terror plots, and the discovery of this plot proves that this strategy sentence, James converted Washington and recruited him to join works. But reference to Torrance in this context is overreaching JIS. Upon his release in 2004, Washington then formed a cell with and disingenuous at best. two recruits. The group actively started researching targets such as military installations, the Israeli Consulate, and synagogues, and Torrance does demonstrate three truths: 1) potential terrorists it funded its operations through the robbery of gas stations. may commit crime to finance an operation, 2) alert, well-trained police officers can help detect links to terrorism, and 3) deploying The four men were indicted in October 2006. Washington was law enforcement resources from many jurisdictions can help solve the first to be sentenced, receiving a 22-year federal prison term in crime and foil terrorism plots. June 2008. During his sentencing hearing, he told the judge that the members of JIS waged war against their own country because However, if the Norwalk, California-based Joint Regional Intelli - they opposed U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and stated gence Center (JRIC) played any role in strategically analyzing that “calamities affecting the Muslim world” had influenced his these robberies and uncovering a nexus to terrorism, officials have outlook. He explained that the cell had robbed gas stations been mum on the details. Most likely, the Torrance case had noth - because oil is a political symbol. Shortly after the robberies, the ing to do with a fusion center. FBI and DHS launched initiatives to assess and address the risk posed by radicalized prisoners. On the surface, eleven gas station robberies in Los Angeles and Orange counties between May 30, 2005 and July 5, 2005 For the domestic security bureaucracy, Torrance functions as a appeared to be typical local crime sprees. During one escape, a political symbol, used to buttress support for fusion centers’ vast thief dropped his cell phone, giving police a rare lead. City police surveillance powers. The value of the story is not that traditional traced the phone to Gregory Vernon Patterson, a 21-year-old local police work solved the case, but rather the unrealized possibility man with no criminal record, and placed him under surveillance. that data-crunching can uncover nefarious plots. The political and According to a criminal complaint, on the evening of July 5 , economic support for fusion centers relies on myths like Torrance. Patterson and Levar Haney Washington, who, later investigations Without such “examples,” the public might be less willing to sac - showed, was an L.A. gang member, drove to a gas station in rifice freedom and privacy in the name of prevention.

THE PUBLIC EYE 10 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye fusion centers assist with searches that cross party presidential candidates such as Con - reviewed the casino’s surveillance videos and jurisdictions, as when a baby was stolen in gressman Ron Paul of Texas and former issued a law enforcement bulletin asking Tennessee and a serial killer went on a Congressman Bob Barr of Iowa.The report other casinos to report any similar activity. shooting spree in North Carolina. 16 also said that some militia members sub - Three months later, officials had nothing The leaders of some fusion centers have scribe to anti-abortion beliefs or oppose ille - more to report. 23 admitted that they switched to an “all-haz - gal immigratio n— suggestions that created Fusion centers encourage corporate ards” approach so they could apply for a a public uproar among law-abiding groups partners and local police alike to report broader range of grants, and because there concerned that they were being lumped in activities such as people taking photo - was far too little terrorism-related infor - with violent, dangerous people. 20 graphs.These “suspicious activity reports” mation to analyze. 17 They were agencies in Furthermore, the Virginia Fusion Cen - (SARs) become data, waiting to be activated need of a mission. According to docu - ter’s 2009 Threat Assessment identified by an analyst working in the fusion center ments provided to the Massachusetts “subversive thought” as a marker for violent system. The growing popularity of SARs ACLU, in 2006 the Massachusetts fusion terrorism and thus targeted “university- are tied to a new criminal intelligence the - center analyzed copper theft for four out - ory, supported at the highest levels of the side partners, studied school violence at five U.S. domestic intelligence enterprise, that schools, investigated calls for fire depart - collecting outwardly innocuous behaviors ment service, conducted three studies for Most government data enhances security.The Los Angeles Police the gang working group, while also com - Department’s “suspicious activities” pro - piling reports on port security, trans - mining today occurs in gram is a national model that the Office of portation security, gang assessments, and the Director of National Intelligence prisoner radicalization. Counter-terror - a legal vacuum outside (ODNI) set out to replicate and stan - ism is not their exclusive, let alone primary, dardize at fusion centers around the coun - priority. the scope of the Fourth try in 2008. 24 LAPD had ordered its officers The lack of a narrowly defined mission to report behaviors that include innocuous poses unnecessary risks to civil liberties. Amendment barring activities clearly protected by the First One fusion center study postulated that Amendement’s assurances of free speech, “there is, more often than not, insufficient unreasonable searches. such as: purely ‘terrorist’ activity to support a multi- • taking measurements jurisdictional, multi-governmental level • using binoculars fusion center that exclusively processes based student groups as radicalization • taking pictures or video footage terrorist activity.” 18 Consequently, there is nodes for almost every type of extremist “with no apparent esthetic value” 21 a risk that analysts’ skills could atrophy as group.” In words reminiscent of “com - • abandoning a vehicle would their interest, from a lack of relevant munist front” theory dating to the Cold • drawing diagrams 19 work. War, Virginia Fusion Center analysts • taking notes In the absence of purely terrorist activ - warned of the Muslim Brotherhood’s • espousing extremist views ity, DHS’s emphasis on “ensuring that our alleged strategy of boring from within by communities are not places where violent infiltrating different Islamic organizations Drawing on this strategy, in January extremism can take root” may invite fusion and obtaining leadership roles. DHS also 2008, the Director of National Intelli - centers to identify local threats based on monitored the D.C. Anti-War Network gence urged state and local law enforcement political rhetoric that is critical of govern - and shared information with the Maryland to “report non-criminal suspicious activi - ment policies. Evidence suggests this is State Polic e— most likely through the ties,” which were defined as “observed already happening. In February 2009, the fusion cente r— during a year-long infil - incidents or behaviors that may be indica - North CentralTexas Fusion System issued tration of Baltimore area peace and social tive of intelligence gathering or pre-oper - a “Prevention Awareness Bulletin” calling justice organizations in 2007-2008. 22 ational planning related to terrorism, on law enforcement to report the activities criminal, or other illicit intention.” The of Muslim civil rights organizations and Recording Our Legal Activities standards left the meaning of “other illicit antiwar protest groups. In March 2009, the – LAPD’s Special Order #11 intention” and “terrorism” to people’s imag - 25 Missouri State Highway Patrol was forced n early 2009, casino security officers inations. to halt the distribution of a report prepared Icontacted the Southern Nevada Counter- In August 2008, the U.S. Departments by the Missouri Information Analysis Cen - Terrorism Center after witnessing three of Justice and Homeland Security, along ter that linked extremists in the modern men taking photos of the casino’s ceiling on with the Major City Chiefs Association, militia movement to supporters of third- a quick visit to the building. Analysts issued a report recommending the expan -

THE PUBLIC EYE 11 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye sion of the LAPD suspicious activity pro - gram to other U.S. cities. Currently, Los BIPARTISAN CALL FOR OVERSIGHT Angeles, Boston, and Miami are among the The Constitution Project, a bipartisan think tank, called on President Obama in the first sites experimenting with this standard - month of his administration to curb the ambiguities and excesses of fusion centers. Its Lib - erty and Security Committee, co-chaired by progressive Georgetown Law Professor David ized reporting process. As one official Cole and David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, asked for Congres - observes, “In many instances the threshold sional oversight hearings and demanded that: for reporting is low, which makes it • All information collected, analyzed, or shared must comply at a mini - extremely difficult to evaluate some of this mum with the federal Privacy Act of 1974; information.” 26 The reduced threshold for • Fusion centers must have a clearly defined scope and a single operational reporting also leads to too much collection. definition; In the words of Bruce Fein, once a staffer • DHS should fully disclose the location, jurisdiction served, and amount to former Republican Congressman Bob of federal funding for each intelligence fusion center; Barr of Iowa, • DHS should prohibit no-bid contracting, and require publication of con - Since anything might be a clue as to tracts and listing of all private sector data sources used in fusion center a possible psychological inclination data collection and analysis; to commit terrorism, everything is • The U.S. military should be strictly prohibited from participating in fair game for intelligence collection. domestic intelligence activities; But when everything is relevant, • Inspectors General should launch an investigation to review fusion cen - nothing is relevant. Finding some - ters’ compliance with existing federal laws protecting due process, pri - thing useful in the mass of undiffer - vacy, civil liberty, and civil rights. entiated intelligence reports and • Congress should restrict the collection of personally identifiable informa - analysis is thus akin to looking for a tion that is not linked to illegal activity, using previous versions of 28 CFR Part 23 as a guide. needle in a haystack. That may explain why there is no credible evi - The Constitution Project, “Recommendations for the Next Administration and Congress,” Washington, D.C., January 2009. dence that fusion centers have frus - trated a single terrorist plot – their http://2009transition.org/liberty- security/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10&Itemid=20 primary raison d’être. 27

Data-Mining and Private insurance claims, car rentals, and real estate product of Atlanta’s Choicepoint, the giant Databases sales. In 2009, DHS announced a new private data aggregator that moved aggres - usion centers reflect the tendency of sur - arrangement with the U.S. Department of sively into the domestic intelligence mar - Fveillance systems to grow both in depth Defense that allowed select fusion center ket after 9/11. 29 Autotrack permits —with reams of information on any one personnel to access terrorism-related infor - subscribers to browse through more than perso n— and in breadth by broadening mation from the Department of Defense’s 17 billion current and historical records on the variety of sources of personal data that classified network. individuals and businesses with as little as they draw on. With unprecedented access a name or social security number as a start - to criminal, intelligence, and private sector ing point. In Maryland, authorities simi - databases, fusion centers give local author - larly rely on a data broker called Entersect, ities an exceptional capacity to monitor The logic of surveillance which maintains 12 billion records on behavior and select individuals or com - about 98 percent of Americans. Systems munities for intervention. Accordingly, systems is to grow. like fusion centers feed on steady diets of fusion centers responded with vigor to the supposedly “actionable” personal infor - FBI and Department of Homeland Secu - mation– all accessed without a warrant. rity’s 2006 guidelines urging them to “obtain The rise of cyberspace, mobile tele - access to an array of databases and sys - phones, and a nearly universal reliance on Privacy Pitfalls tems.” Although the guidelines listed only credit and debit cards has, as James Rule put tate governments established fusion public information assets, such as motor it, “created cornucopias of actionable per - Scenters with federal dollars in the absence vehicle databases, state fusion centers now sonal data to tempt the surveillance of any legal framework, and their data min - contract with private data brokers to access appetites of institutions.” 28 For instance, in ing occurs in a legal vacuum outside the private information like unpublished cell Massachusetts, the Commonwealth Fusion scope of the Fourth Amendment, which phone numbers, consumer credit profiles, Center website boasts access to Accurint, bars unreasonable searches. 30 Although data Lexis-Nexis, LocatePlus, and Autotrack, a mining can have real consequences for

THE PUBLIC EYE 12 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye individuals tracked, there are no legal guar - the records nor even collect them, but antees for the accuracy or appropriateness simply mine them through digital gateways. Now Online at of the data or the searches, no redress for Records are accessed, not retained as they www.publiceye.org! people injured by being falsely identified as would be in specific case or investigative posing a threat, and no judicial or legisla - files. 31 Therefore, fusion centers may tech - Killing for Life Returns tive oversight. Some fusion centers purge nically comply with Part 23, but still by Carol Mason data searches after one or five years, but no actively assault the right of individuals to A reflection on the one is responsible for doing so. Fusion cen - be free from government surveillance and Tiller murder. ter records are also beyond the reach of the its concomitant social pressures to conform. Now on the repro Privacy Act of 1974, which regulates and In their 2005 book, Protecting Liberty in justice page of gives individuals access to the files of an Age ofTerror, Juliette Kayyem and Philip federal agencies. Heymann argue that we need new pro - www.publiceye.org! The main federal regulation governing tections for individuals against what appears criminal intelligence databases is 28 CFR to be the unrestricted authority of the gov - tle comfort. The good intentions of some Part 23. Congress enacted Part 23 in a series ernment to collect and mine information. government officials will not protect the of reforms initiated during the 1970s to They recommend a system where courts public from abuse that will inevitably occur curb widespread abuses of police investi - must give authorization before agencies can given lax oversight, ill-defined missions, and gations for political purposes. It is designed collect and access data on individuals, inadequate legal protections. Executive- to ensure that police intelligence operations branch repression of dissent using personal focus on illegal behavior by requiring that data stretches back as far as the Palmer criminal intelligence systems “collect and The lack of a narrowly Raids after World War I. More recently, maintain criminal intelligence information President Ronald Reagan used tax audits to concerning an individual only if there is rea - defined mission poses pressure critics of his Central America poli - sonable suspicion that the individual is cies and George W. Bush enacted his secret involved in criminal conduct or activity and unnecessary risks to warrantless wiretap program. Based on the the information is relevant to that crimi - historical record, American intelligence nal conduct or activity.” civil liberties. agencies have not earned the trust of Con - Fusion centers receiving federal funds are gress, the courts, or the people when it required to abide by Part 23, but the fed - comes to domestic surveillance. eral government actively promotes the vio - An engaged Congress which takes its lation of the regulation by encouraging Congress sets standards for the various oversight role seriously must enact a new fusion centers to collect noncriminal intel - types of authorization, and the legislative series of legal protections on the scale of ligence and to draw on public and private branch oversees the whole process.To date, those of the 1970s. (See box on Constitu - sector data. Not only is the government fail - no such protections exist. 32 Perhaps there tion Project proposals.) Just as during ing to enforce or intensely monitor com - is “hope” in the fact that Kayyem now serves Americans’ fight for reform in the 1970s, pliance with Part 23, but this regulation as Assistant Secretary of Intergovernmen - it will take investigations by Congress, may not go far enough to protect privacy tal Programs at DHS. state legislatures, attorneys general, jour - and free expression in the current envi - nalists, and citizens to expose the current ronment. Resist Mass Surveillance practices of fusion centers and build the Part 23 may not apply to the data-min - he logic of surveillance systems is to political pressure necessary for change. ing and access functions of the fusion cen - Tgrow. Because there is no “natural Lawyers representing protestors and defen - ters since it regulates collection rather than limit” to the incorporation of personal dants in terrorism cases can also play a key the processing of information held by information in systems of mass surveil - role in discovering how these institutions other parties. For example, New Mexico’s lance, our only defense is collective action are monitoring their clients. Lastly, just as All Source Intelligence Center has access to impose limits on the post-9/11 intelli - DHS engages academia in promoting trou - to 240 state, regional, and federal agency gence apparatus. 33 blesome theories of intelligence-led polic - databases, including agricultural and parks Russell Porter of the Iowa Fusion Intel - ing and violent radicalization, civil agencies. Establishing what kinds of infor - ligence Center keeps a copy of the Bill of libertarians must respond in kind. In a free mation fusion centers are processing can be Rights posted near the front door of the society, civil liberties must be the corner - difficult, according to Peter Simonson, center’s office, and he insists that fusion cen - stone of antiterrorism policy, not an after - executive director of the New Mexico ters are only interested in investigating thought, as it has been in the development ACLU chapter, because they do not store criminal activity. That should provide lit - of fusion centers . I

THE PUBLIC EYE 13 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

End Notes Craig Peters, “Manhunt for killer intensifies after the letin , December 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/arti - fifth victim dies,” GoUpstate.com , July 5, 2009. cles/mi_m2194/is_12_76/ai_n27479553/ ; Michael P. 1 Bart C. Johnson, “A Look at Fusion Centers Working http://www.goupstate.com/article/20090705/ARTI - Downing, “Policing Terrorism in the United States: Together to Protect America,” FBI Law Enforcement Bul - CLES/907051029/1130/COLUMNISTS?Title= The Los Angeles Police Department’s Convergence letin, December 2007, pp. 28, 30. http://www.fbi.gov/pub - Manhunt-for-killer-intensifies Strategy,” Police Chief, July 2009. http://policechief - lications/leb/2007/dec2007/december2007leb.htm 17 Todd Masse, Siobhan O’Neil and John Rollins, “CRS magazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=dis - 2 See, e.g., Bart Johnson, Testimony before the House Report for Congress: Fusion Centers: Issues and Options play_arch&article_id=1729&issue_id=22009 Committee on Homeland Security (June 24, 2009), for Congress,” Congressional Research Service , July 6, 2007, 35 Manhattan Institute, “State Fusion Center Processes and stating, “As a former law enforcement professional who 22, n.45, cited in Caroline Fredrickson, “Statement Procedures: Best Practices and Recommendations,” well understands the critical importance of the rule of law Before the Subcommittee onTerrorism and Homeland Policing Terrorism Report , September 2007. in making our people and places truly safe, I pledge to you Security, Senate Committee on the Judiciary,” April 21, http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ptr_02.htm that strict adherence to privacy, civil rights and civil lib - 2009. http://www.aclu.org/images/asset_upload_file33_ erties laws and regulations will be the starting, mid and 36 Shane Harris, “LA’s anti-terrorism hub serves as model,” 39415.pdf end points of [Intelligence and Analysis’] homeland National Journal , May 2, 2007 http://www.govexec. security intelligence work under my watch.” 18 Milton Nenneman, “An Examination of State and Local com/dailyfed/0507/050207nj1.htm See also Todd http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/testimony/testimony_124586294 Fusion Centers and Data Collection Methods,”Thesis, Masse, Siobhan O’Neill, and John Rollins, Information 5214.shtm Naval Postgraduate School, March 2008, pp. 2-3. and Intelligence Fusion Centers (Nova Science Publishers, 2008), p. 6. 3 James B. Rule, Privacy in Peril (New York: Oxford Uni - 19 Nenneman. 37 versity Press, 2007), p. 14. 20 ACLU, “Fusion center encourages improper investiga - http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0507/050207nj1.htm 4 Bruce Berkowitz,“Homeland Security Intelligence: tions of lobbying groups and anti-war activists,” Com - Rationale, Requirements, and Current Status,” in Ana - monDreams.org , February 25, 2009. http://www.common lyzing Intelligence , ed. Roger George and James Bruce, dreams.org/newswire/2009/02/2 (Washington, DC: Georgetown University, Center for 21 See Stephen Webster, “Fusion center declares nation’s old - Peace and Security Studies, 2008), pp. 281-293. est universities possible threat,”The Raw Story, April 6, 5 See EPIC’s website for a timeline of the development of 2009. http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Virginia_ter - fusion centers: http://epic.org/privacy/fusion/ ror_assessment_targets_enormous_crosssection_0406.html 6 Massachusetts Commonwealth Fusion Center, “Guide - 22 Matthew Rothschild, “ACLU Highlights Risk of Fusion lines for Investigations Involving First Amendment Activ - Centers,”The Progressive, July 30, 2008. http://www.pro - ity,” No. CFC-04, March 5, 2008. gressive.org/mag/mc073008a.html 7 Joseph Straw, “Smashing Intelligence Stovepipes,” Secu - 23 Jeff German, “Fusion center’s attention on prevention,” rity Management, March 2008. http://www.securityman - Las Vegas Sun, May 22, 2009. The Las Vegas center agement.com/article/smashing-intelligence-stovepipes opened with the help of a $4.6 million federal grant and costs an estimated $1 million a year to operate. 8 See, e.g., Neil MacFarquhar, “Protest Greets Police Plan http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/may/22/fusion- to Map Muslim Angelenos,” CommonDreams.org , centers-attention-prevention/ November 9, 2007. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/ 2007/11/09/5129 24 LAPD Order #40 compels LAPD officers to report “suspicious behaviors” in addition to their other duties 9 Joseph Straw, “Smashing Intelligence Stovepipes,” Secu - in order to create a stream of “intelligence” about a host rity Management , March 2008. http://www.securityman - of everyday activities that will be fed to the LA-based Joint agement.com/article/smashing-intelligence-stovepipes Regional Intelligence Center (JRIC). 10 Joseph Straw, “Fusion Centers should work with ISACs,” 25 Under pressure from civil libertarians ODNI revised its Security Management , November 2007. http://www.secu - directive in April 2009 to require that non-criminal activ - ritymanagement.com/article/fusion-centers-should-work- ities have a “potential nexus to terrorism.” It is not clear isacs how “Version 1.5” of this directive has been implemented New Report from PRA! 11 Robert O’Harrow, “Centers Tap into Databases: State or if officers have been retrained in light of the change. Groups Were Informed After 9/11,” Washington Post, http://www.niem.gov/IEPD_Updates.php Available online now! April 2, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- 26 Brian Jackson, ed., The Challenge of Domestic Intelligence dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040103049.html in a Free Society , (New York: RAND Corp., 2009), p. 31 www.publiceye.org 12 Fredrickson. (internal citation omitted). http://www.rand.org/pubs/ 13 John S. Pistole, “Remarks” at National Fusion Center con - monographs/2009/RAND_MG804.pdf ference, March 7, 2007. http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/ 27 Bruce Fein, Statement before the Subcommittee on speeches/pistole030707.htm The Torrance gas station Intelligence Sharing &Terrorism Risk Assessment Com - robberies were connected to a terrorist plot only after a mittee on Homeland Security, April 1, 2009. search of a suspect’s home revealed jihadist literature and http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/41360 indications of planning; the Norwalk-based fusion cen - ANTI-ABORTION STRATEGY cont’d from page 22 28 Rule, p. 37. ter did not predict such a connection based upon the 39 string of robberies. 29 See Robert O’Harrow, No Place to Hide (New York: Free George Weigel, et al , “The America We Seek: A State - Press, 2006). ment of Pro-Life Principle and Concern,” First Things , 14 John Rollins, Congressional Research Service, “CRS 30 May 1996, pgs. 40-44. Also published in The National Report for Congress: Fusion Centers: Issues and Options O’Harrow. Review ; and on the web site of Priests for Life. An ear - for Congress,” updated January 18, 2009, p. 25. 31 Hilary Hylton, “Fusion Centers: Giving Cops the Right lier, less policy oriented statement of principles issued by http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL34070.pdf Information?” Time , March 9, 2009. some of the same group, led by then-Governor Robert 15 Casey (D-PA) argued for policies that “would provide Fredrickson, p. 7, quoting, “Protecting Individual Pri - 32 Philip B. Heymann and Juliette N. Kayyem, ed. Protecting maximum feasible legal protection for the unborn and vacy In The Struggle Against Terrorists: A Framework (Cambridge, MA:, MIT Press, Liberty in an Age ofTerror maximum feasible care and support for pregnant women, For Program Assessments,” Committee On Technical 2005). And Privacy Dimensions Of Information ForTerrorism mothers, and children.” Robert P. Casey, et al, “A New Prevention And Other National Goals (2008), available 33 ACLU, “What’s Wrong With Fusion Centers,” Decem - American Compact: Caring about Women, Caring for at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12452 ber 5, 2007. http://www.aclu.org/privacy/gen/ the Unborn,” 1992. Republished at Catholics Online, June 32966pub20071205.html 17, 2008. http://www.catholic.org/printer_friendly. 16 Jeanie Powell, “Tennessee Authorities Determine Stolen php?id=28241§ion=Cathcom Baby Wasn’t For Sale,” WAFF48 News, October 5 , 34 Bart Johnson, “A Look at Fusion Centers, Working 2009. http://www.waff.com/Global/story.asp?S=11263043 ; Together to Protect America,” FBI Law Enforcement Bul -

THE PUBLIC EYE 14 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye Anti-abortion Strategy in the Age of Obama By Frederick Clarkson t didn’t turn out like they had Iplanned. Two decades of political investment by the antiabortion move - ment and the Religious Right did not result in the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Even conservative Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged during his confirmation hearing, “ Roe v.Wade is the settled law of the land.”Then the rising prospects of the Democratic Party, and the historic election of the prochoice president Barack Obama s and a Democratic Congress, seemed e g a m to have secured Roe for the foreseeable I y t t future. e G / g n

But due to the success of the notion o W x

of “abortion reduction,” the general e l approach driving the politics of the A Anti-abortion leaders such as Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America spoke out agains t making “com - antiabortion movement for at least mon ground” with prochoice groups. Here, a banner at the 2009 "March for Life" in Washington, D.C. two decades may succeed. 1 A broad strategy to reduce the number of abortions performed in the abandon the practice and discourage new of the Christian Patriot and militia move - United States has been pursued by most of doctors from including abortion as part of ments of the era. They saw legal abortion the movement, although there are dis - standard ob/gyn practice. “We have oppor - as violence waged against the people by an agreements about how to do it, notably over tunities before us which if properly increasingly secular and tyrannical gov - violence and other criminal acts. The tac - exploited,” declared militant strategist ernment. 4 tics employed fall under three broad cate - Mark Crutcher, of Life Dynamics in 1992, Then, as now, there was a prochoice gories: erecting legal obstacles to abortion “could result in an America where abortion Democratic president, and the end of legal at the state level such as mandatory wait - may be perfectly legal, but no one can get abortion was nowhere on the horizon. In ing periods; preventing the use of public one.” 2 the wake of the 2009 assassination of promi - funds for the provision of abortion care at In the mid-90s, the mainstream of the nent abortion provider Dr. GeorgeTiller by all levels of government; and political, anti-abortion movement found itself in cri - a veteran of both the Patriot movement and legal, and extralegal interference with sis in the wake of high profile assassinations militant antiabortion activism, and a dra - obtaining and providing abortion care, of doctors and clinic staff in Florida, Mas - matic escalation in militant antiabortion which includes harassment of patients and sachusetts and Canada; an escalation of activism and violent rhetoric, the movement clinic staff, violence and threats of violence. death threats, bomb and anthrax threats as finds itself in an analogous situation today. 5 A goal of the last tactic is to get doctors to well as actual bombings and arsons. Move - As in the 1990s, steady efforts to reduce ment leaders were beset by an unflattering access to abortion provide a viable, incre - Frederick Clarkson is the editor of Dis - media circus in the wake of the incendiary mental, way forward for the movement as patches from the Religious Left:The Future claims of some that the murder of abortion it copes with the climate as well as actual vio - of Faith and Politics in America (IgPub - providers was “justifiable homicide.” 3 lence promoted by their co-belligerents in lishing),and founder of Talk2Action, the What’s more, many proponents of anti- the war on abortion. group blog about the Christian Right. He is abortion violence shared the anti-govern - But there is also an important difference. a member of the Public Eye editorial board. ment ideology and revolutionary rhetoric

THE PUBLIC EYE 15 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

Battleground Democratic Party individuals – but it attracted not a single the issue of “conscience clause” exemptions he anti-abortion movement could not significant anti-abortion advocacy group from acknowledgment, let alone provi - Thave anticipated that elements of the or any major anti-abortion religious lead - sion of abortion in reproductive health prochoice Democratic Party would promote ers or organizations. As if to underscore the care, will continue to be vigorously pursued policy in their direction just at the moment lack of political viability of this approach, by the anti-abortion movement both in fed - of the Democrats’ political ascendance. anti-abortion Congressman Tim Ryan, eral policy and in the states.This will likely Although there had been rumblings and the Ohio Democrat, says he was “booted” remain a serious fissure in “common debate, 6 the first real indication of this from the advisory board of Democrats for ground” conversations in the current and move was during the election campaign of Life for taking the lead with the prochoice likely ongoing efforts to reform the health 2006, when the centrist, business-funded Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Con - care system in the U.S. Indeed, at this think tankThird Way advised Democratic necticut in sponsoring the bill. 9 writing, anti-abortion advocates are seek - candidates to try to neutralize the issue by What’s more, with some minor excep - ing to expand the opportunities for health saying, “We must reduce the number of tions, the large Roman Catholic wing of the care providers to opt out of providing, abortions while protecting personal liber - anti-abortion movement would not sign on and even health insurers from covering, ties.” 7 They claimed to want to appeal to abortion care. anti-abortion Roman Catholics and con - servative evangelicals as part of the party’s What’s Past Is Prologue various “faith outreach” efforts. However Gloria Feldt, a past he standoff over the Ryan-DeLauro Bill this approach to finding common ground Tmust have been a disappointment for required turning a blind eye to the reality president of Planned advocates of the “common ground” abor - that access to abortion care in the U.S. is tion reduction agenda that emerged in receding, and that this approach main - Parenthood Federation 2009, sponsored jointly byThirdWay and streams a fundamental concept of anti- the liberal think tank Faith in Public Life, abortion strategy and related terminology. of America, warned that an offshoot of the Democratic Party ori - It recasts contraception and sex education ented Center for American Progress.Their as if their primary purpose was to achieve the anti-abortion, abor - paper was titled: Come Let Us Reason the goal of reducing the number of abor - Together: A Governing Agenda to End the tions. tion-reduction agenda CultureWars (CLURT). Ostensibly mod - This approach to finding common erate evangelicals David Gushee, formerly ground was accompanied by an effort to was being further of Southern Baptist Seminary; the Rev. “dial down” the rancor of the so-called Jim Wallis of Sojourners, and Ron Sider of culture war.The Democratic Party and its enshrined by the courts. Evangelicals for Social Action played impor - presidential candidate sought if not a tant roles in the development of the man - reduction in the number of abortions, a ifesto. CLURT highlighted sexuality reduction in the “need” for abortion education (with an emphasis on absti - through public policy that supports women because, while some conservative Protes - nence) and access to contraception, in addi - so that they are less likely to become preg - tant evangelicals view contraception as an tion to economic supports for women and nant, or so they enjoy support if they do acceptable way of preventing unwanted improved adoption options as areas of become pregnant. 8 pregnancies and thus abortion, few Roman “common ground” on abortion. All these This notion of “abortion reduction” Catholic leaders take that view. Douglas elements, though, were missing from its and its close variants were at the heart of a Johnson of the heavily Catholic National landmark predecessor, the anti-abortion, number of Congressional legislative pro - Right to Life Committee, for example, bipartisan but Republican-oriented man - posals in 2009, none of which gained has repeatedly called the president’s efforts ifesto from the 1990s, The America We much support. The bill most favored by at finding common ground on abortion a Seek: A Statement of Pro-Life Principle and Democratic advocates of “common “scam.” 10 Concern , of which Gushee was the princi - ground” on abortion, “Preventing Unin - If, as seems likely, given the current leg - pal author. 11 (See sidebar.) This was the tended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for islative standoff, there will be little in the mainstream antiabortion leaders’ effort to Abortion and Supporting Parents Act,” way of change in abortion policy coming salvage the movement’s focus and credibil - (best known as the Ryan-DeLauro bill) was out of Washington any time soon, the ity, partly in response to the public backlash introduced with much fanfare and enjoyed public policy action for the anti-abortion against the assassination of doctors and the support of leading prochoice organi - movement will be in the states, where it has other violence. zations, and some anti-abortion groups and mostly been for two decades. What’s more, CLURT represented a hybrid of tradi -

THE PUBLIC EYE 16 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

tional progressive approaches and elements The America We Seek and the Origins of Abortion Reduction of the 1990s anti-abortion agenda – but its The general approach crystallized over several months in early 1996 when 45 antiabortion signature approach was the idea (and bor - and religious right leaders, organized by the neoconservative Ethics and Public Policy Cen - rowing the language) of abortion reduction ter, formally adopted abortion reduction as a series of related tactics short of criminaliza - as a policy goal on which both sides could tion. 38 Their manifesto, The America We Seek: A Statement of Pro-Life Principle and Concern supposedly find common ground. 12 was published in the flagship journal of Roman Catholic neoconservatism, First Things. CLURT avoided discussing issues of access and barriers to abortion care, key areas The writers were inspired by the 1992 Supreme Court decision in Casey v. Planned Parent - hood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, which ratified the state level laws seeking to discourage where the anti-abortion movement has abortion by making the procedure more difficult to obtain. 39 gained ground since the 1990s through its state and local-level incremental political “Now, as pro-life leaders and scholars,” they declared, “we want to propose a program of strategy of forcing waiting periods and the action…” And the core of that program was abortion reduction via the erection of barriers like on those seeking abortions. to abortion access “in all 50 states” while also creating incentives for women to carry “Public policy has its limits,” David unplanned pregnancies to term. While they understood that the legal obstacles upheld in Gushee declared at the January 15th press the Casey decision “do not afford any direct legal protection to the unborn child,” they conference announcing CLURT, which stated that “ experience has shown that such regulation s— genuine informed consent, waiting was hosted by Faith in Public Life andThird periods, parental notification—reduce abortions in a locality, especially when coupled with positive efforts to promote alternatives to abortion and service to women in crisis. ” [Emphasis Way. “We call for abortion reduction. I sup - added] port this because I believe that one of the things that must not be done to human Under pressure to distance themselves from the anti-abortion violence of the era, anti-abor - beings is to abort them; and yet those fac - tion leaders had found a way to hold to a credible political strategy that conveyed a sufficient ing crisis pregnancies need help to create urgency. Nevertheless, they struggled with the emotional and political disconnect between the conditions in which they can sustain the demagogic, if heartfelt, “bloody shirt” type rhetoric (i.e.: abortion is “murder” or a and protect the lives for which they are now “holocaust”) and the moderate, incremental policy ideas of abortion reduction. They responsible.” 13 Rachel Laser ofThird Way declared, for example, that abortion “has killed tens of millions of unborn children,” but summarized the point on behalf of the that they were nevertheless committed to abortion reduction and providing “the infrastruc - ture for “alternatives” to abortion via a national network of 3,000 “Crisis Pregnancy Centers.” group: Reducing abortions through address - More consistent with their sense of moral urgency was their referencing bills then being ing the root causes of abortion. The considered in Congress that involved “criminal sanctions” for abortion providers, and policies in our shared agenda prevent demanded that Congress “recognize the unborn child as a human person entitled to the unintended pregnancies and sup - protection of the Constitution.” The America they seek is one whose politics and public policy advances reduce abortions while seeking to build political clout sufficient to crimi - port pregnant women and new fam - nalize abortion forever. But they recognized that while criminalization was unlikely in their ilies; they do not ban or even restrict lifetimes, they were not then, and are not now, without options. But of course, the tension legal access to abortion in any way. remains, and the state level campaigns aimed at constitutional declarations of fetal person - They include but are not limited to hood and thus challenges to the constitutionality of Roe , are ongoing. comprehensive sex education, increased access to contraception for The authors of The America We Seek were a bipartisan group led by George Weigel of the low-income women, expanded Ethics and Public Policy Center (the official biographer of Pope John Paul II) and included health care coverage for pregnant Roman Catholic legal scholars Robert P. George of Princeton and Mary Ann Glendon of women and children, and support for Harvard (whom George W. Bush would appoint as Ambassador to the Vatican), Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life; Clarke D. Forsythe of Americans United for Life; James pregnant and parenting students, 14 Dobson of Focus on the Family; Ralph Reed of the then-powerful Christian Coalition, and for adoption. Beverly LaHaye of Concerned Women for America; William Kristol, former Chief of Staff The CLURT authors had, as shown to Vice President Dan Quayle; Phillip E. Johnson founder of the theocratic think tank of above, blurred the careful wording of the the “intelligent design” theory, Discovery Institute; Jean Bethke Elshtain, a political philoso - 2008 Democratic Party platform position pher at the University of Chicago, and currently a cochair of the Pew Forum on Religion on abortion that had rejected language and Public Life; and former Gov. Robert P. Casey, (D-PA). emphasizing reducing the number of abor - Three of this group later played pivotal roles in the development of Third Way’s Come Let tions in favor of emphasizing the right to Us Reason Together document outlining an abortion reduction plan for the Democrats: choose and reducing the need for abor - David Gushee, then of Southern Baptist Seminary; the Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners; and tion. The platform also called for greater Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action. support for women who seek to carry their

THE PUBLIC EYE 17 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye pregnancies to term and for better adop - Roman Catholics and Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) son of the late Sen. tion options. The White House Office of “Common Ground” Ted Kennedy. But the spectacle of about Faith Based and Neighborhood Partner - hile Gushee and some prolife evan - 70 Catholic Bishops 18 denouncing the deci - ships (OFBNP) embraced this general Wgelicals can accept targeting fed - sion of Notre Dame to invite president thinking in its mission statement posted on eral funds for improved family planning and Obama to speak last yea r— solely because the White House web site: “It will be one sexuality education on the prevention side he is prochoic e—may be a bellwether. voice among several in the administration of pregnanc y—key parts of the common Several American Cardinals and a third of that will look at how we support women ground strateg y—few Roman Catholic the American Bishops are due to retire in and children, address teenage pregnancy, leaders will ever go along. The U.S Con - the next few years, providing the oppor - and reduce the need for abortion.” ference of Catholic Bishops, (USCCB) has tunity for Pope Benedict XVI to set an even This won attention from Wendy Wright opposed legislative efforts to enhance access more profoundly “theologically orthodox” of Concerned Women for America, (for - direction for the American church for a gen - merly a militant leader in Operation Res - eration. 19 cue) who misleadingly (but perhaps understandably), claimed that the Office The Feminist Majority Religious Supremacism, of Faith Based and Neighborhood Part - orYou Can’t Be Prochoice and Religious nerships “is now tasked with reducing the Foundation’s annual number of abortions – something that avid Gushee himself later aired doubts pro-life groups have very good experience Dabout the entire Democratic common survey on clinic violence 20 in accomplishing.” She then restated a key ground project. What’s more, he indicated element of the abortion reduction agenda, found that in 2008, to journalist Sarah Posner, he has not aban - “Pregnancy resource centers and regulations doned the long-term goal of criminalization, on abortion have a terrific track record in “one in five clinics stating that “the principles articulated [in helping women choose alternatives to The America We Seek ] still reflect my own 20 abortion. Funding abortion or abortion experienced severe views.” providers is one of the worst things that Integral to the approach of a wide swath could be done.” 15 violence.” of the movement is their embrace of reli - Meanwhile, Gloria Feldt, a past presi - gious supremacism. This aspect of ideo - dent of Planned Parenthood Federation of logical anti-abortionism, which is even America, warned that the abortion-reduc - held by such supposed moderates as tion agenda was being further enshrined by to contraception even though it is well Gushee, may pose an unbridgeable chasm the federal courts. “A cascade of more than established as the most reliable way to in ever finding any actual common ground. 30 post- Roe Supreme Court decisions— prevent unintended pregnancies. Deirdre This is evident in Gushee’s subtle, but starting with 1980’s Harris v. McRae McQuade, assistant director of policy and ominous, warning on the op-ed page of (upholding the Hyde Amendment’s pro - communications at the “pro-life secre - USA Today soon after President Obama hibition on Medicaid abortion coverage) tariat,” of the Bishops’ Conference told took office. The occasion was Obama’s through Planned Parenthood v. Casey (allow - U.S. News and World Report: “The phrase expected lifting of the Bush-era executive ing legislatures to restrict abortion in any ‘reducing the need for abortion’ is not a order barring federal funding of interna - way that does not create an “undue bur - common-ground phrase. We would say tional family planning groups that support den”)—laid a smooth path for 2007’s Gon - that there is no need for abortion, that abortion and embryonic stem cell zales v. Carhart decision, which upheld the abortions are signs that we have not met the research. 21 first ever federal abortion ban (misnamed needs of women. There is no authentic “I do confess,” Gushee declared, “that the Partial Birth Abortion Act). The need for abortion.” 17 my desire to retain good relationships with Roberts Court reversed the often-reaf - Pushing the divide even wider, ever the Obama team has tempted me to give firmed precedent that women’s health is larger numbers of Catholic Bishops are tak - what was asked in return for the big pay - paramount in abortion law, and it used anti- ing aggressive stances against prochoice off of a serious abortion-reduction initia - abortion code language to signal that it will politicians, refusing communion, publicly tive that I could wholeheartedly support.” likely allow states and Congress to limit declaring their stances on abortion, stem Gushee wrote that he does not want to sac - women’s reproductive rights further.” 16 cell research and LGTB civil rights as not rifice principles in order to ensure access to only at odds with Catholic teaching, but power and he found himself struggling with “anti-Catholic.” The most recent elected what he saw as the reality that his side might official to receive such treatment was Rep. lose on other aspects of abortion policy “for

THE PUBLIC EYE 18 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye a long time to come.” He is worried that This situation has had consequences far campaign against Planned Parenthood by taxpayer funds might be used to pay for beyond the issue at hand. As we have seeking to thwart public sector grants and abortion services in violation of the “sacred reported in The Public Eye, for example, contracts at all levels, no matter what the beliefs” of his movement’s members. He is there has been a quarter century of organ - grants and contracts are for. 27 This revived also worried that tax-exemption or taxpayer ized assault on prochoice mainline Protes - coalition was sparked by the opening of a subsidies for religious institutions and tant churches. 25 Rightwing outside interests, new clinic in Aurora, Illinois after a bitter anti-abortion healthcare professionals could working with conservative dissident fac - battle. But the war of attrition has also had be jeopardized if they are “required as a con - tions, have used abortion and homosexu - successes. In Orange County, California a dition of accreditation, or employment, or ality as wedge issues to keep prochoice, $300,000 health and sexuality education contact with federal dollars, to actively progressive Protestant denominations in grant to the local Planned Parenthood was facilitate or perform deeds that their con - turmoil and headed for schism. This has cancelled by a unanimous vote of the science forbids them from doing.” widened the opening for conservative Board of Supervisors. County Supervisor “And if we lose there,” he dramatically Catholicism and evangelicalism to increas - John Moorlach told The Los AngelesTimes, concluded, “ then the entire relationship ingly displace them at the center of Amer - “I personally have a problem with gov - between religious faith and American society ican culture. These efforts have been led, ernment funding of an organization that will move into a period of profound crisis. ” in part, by some of the same neoconserv - provides abortion services.” 28 [Emphasis added] ative Catholic leaders behind The America The looming intertwined issue of pub - Gushee has neatly expressed, here, the We Seek. 26 lic financing of abortion and services religious supremacism that remains a dis - deemed to be related to abortion is not new tinguishing feature of the anti-abortion and dates back to the 1970s and the Hyde movement. We can hear it in its refusal to Amendment, which barred Medicaid and acknowledge that the vast majority of The spectacle of about other federal funding of abortion in 1976. Christians, Jews and other s— as well as clear In fact, you could call Hyde the first vol - majorities of Americans, see abortion as a 70 Catholic Bishops ley in the abortion reduction strategy. moral choice. 22 Their movement’s unam - Before the Hyde Amendment, about a biguous implication is that anyone who is denouncing the decision third of all abortions performed in the prochoice cannot be religious. 23 We increas - United States were for poor women on ingly hear such expressions not only from of Notre Dame to invite Medicaid. “No other medical procedure well known leaders of the Religious Right, was singled out for exclusion,” the National but from ostensibly moderate and liberal president Obama to Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) Roman Catholic and evangelical abortion reported. “Today, 33 states have followed opponents. Two liberal Roman Catholic spea k— solely because suit, prohibiting state Medicaid funding as advocates for abortion reduction gave us a well.” All but one of these states (South high profile and exceptionally clear exam - he is prochoic e— Dakota) follows the Hyde exceptions of ple in a 2009 op-ed in The Cleveland Plain rape, incest, or life endangerment. The Dealer. “Secular progressives who view may be a bellwether. report details the disproportionate burdens access to abortion as a fundamental right” placed on disadvantaged women, and are, in their formulation, pitted against observes that “women of color dispropor - “religious Americans who believe it is a pro - Public Financing of Abortion tionately depend on such coverage, mak - found threat to the sanctity of lif e.” 24 ing abortion funding a matter of racial nother stumbling block for the Underscoring the stark distortion of justice as well as economic justice and common ground alliance is the anti- such views is the fact that most of the A women’s rights.” 29 abortion movement’s opposition to public major institutions of mainline Protes - But the federal restrictions did not stop funding of organizations with expertise in tantism and the major bodies of Judaism, there. Over the years, Congress has also birth control and sexuality education but among others, are officially prochoice and legislated against access to abortion serv - that also provide abortions, even if the are members of the Religious Coalition for ices for women in the military and Peace funded project has nothing to do with Reproductive Choice (RCRC). The con - Corps, disabled women, residents of the abortion. flation of anti-abortionism with religion District of Columbia, federal prisoners, and As journalist Adele Stan has detailed in itself, and the prochoice view as inher - women covered by the Indian Health Serv - a wide swath of the anti- ently nonreligious, or “secular,” sets the The Public Eye, ice. Indeed, it could be fairly argued that abortion movement, Catholic and non- stage for a one-sided conflict that goes far except for the legal right to an abortion, fed - Catholic, is ratcheting up its longtime beyond matters of incivility, or “rancor.” eral policies constitute the greatest abortion

THE PUBLIC EYE 19 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye m o c . s n o o t r a c l a c i t i l o p / e e g g i r P t l i M reduction program of all. “Prior to 1996,” part of government funded health care.” 30 arguably minor issues of the commingling states the NNAF report, “legal immigrants Obama’s approach to common ground on of private and public funds that might and U.S. citizens were equally eligible for abortion in the health care debate has been touch on abortion. Medicaid.” But the 1996 welfare reform advanced under the rubric of seeking to Defenders of abortion rights might law signed by President Clinton required keep the legislation “neutral” on abortion. rightly worry that “conscience clauses” a five-year waiting period before most new But anti-abortion legislators in both par - could also be said to have a venerable his - legal immigrants could even apply. Fewer ties argue that some funds might go to sub - tory. The original conscience clause legis - than half of the states fill in the five-year gap sidize abortions covered under private lation passed in 1973 in the wake of Roe with their own funds, and nine states per - insurance. “states that public officials may not require manently deny Medicaid coverage to A spokesman for the USCCB told The individuals or entities who receive certain noncitizen residents. NewYorkTimes, “The concerns are kind of public funds to perform abortion or ster - As of this writing, House Democrats intractable.” 31 Prochoice leaders point out ilization procedures or to make facilities or passed a healthcare reform bill that would that without the subsidies, private insur - personnel available for the performance of extend the principles of the Hyde Amend - ers, which already cover abortions, might such procedures if such performance ment to the proposed overhaul of the no longer do so. Obama and others, per - “would be contrary to [the individual or health care system, and further block fed - haps gulled by their efforts to find common entity’s] religious beliefs or moral convic - eral subsidies for private health insurance ground, were taken by surprise that Hyde tions.” 32 This provision has allowed even that covers abortion care. While President operating as the default principle guiding major medical facilities such as Roman Obama reportedly opposed the move, he public programs does not go far enough for Catholic hospitals to refuse to deal with told Katie Couric on the CBS Evening the USCCB and many antiabortion abortions without jeopardizing their abil - News in July that there is a “tradition” in Democrats who support universal health - ity to receive public grants and contracts Washington “of not financing abortions as care. All appeared willing to sacrifice it over or affecting their tax exempt status. A new

THE PUBLIC EYE 20 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye rule promulgated late in the Bush admin - access. That is why the U.S. Conference sometimes violent environment for abor - istration expanded and particularized the of Catholic Bishops and leading antiabor - tion providers. The Feminist Majority exemptions, stating that healthcare work - tion groups waged a vigorous preemptive Foundation’s annual survey on clinic vio - ers may even refuse to provide information lobbying campaign before the new Con - lence found that in 2008, “one in five clin - or advice regarding abortion.The Obama gress was seated in 2009. All year (and as ics experienced severe violence. The most administration has rescinded the Bush recently as December 2nd) the conserva - common severe forms of violence reported rule, but says it plans to leave some “rea - tive weekly Human Events issued screech - in 2008 include blockades, facility inva - sonable” exemptions in place. ing fundraising letters signed by Mike sions, and stalking .” It lists a host of harass - What we see now is a far ranging effort Huckabee warning about “this EVIL law ,” ments faced by patients and staff in 2008 on the part of anti-abortion forces to use which he described as “the most radical from death and bomb threats to vandalism, conscience clauses as a wedge, pitting reli - piece of pro-abortion legislation ever pro - home picketing, and break-ins. Unsur - gious supremacist notions of religious free - posed.” In fact, the bill was not even intro - prisingly, the Feminist Majority Founda - dom against the civil, human, and even duced in the 111th Congres s— even tion also reports that the number of religious rights of others. though President Obama had previously abortion providers has dramatically said he would sign it if it reached his desk. declined: from 739 in 2005 to 683 in What’s missing? But the reality of the Washington 2008. 36 nti-abortion leaders know that state- moment does not alter anyone’s under - In short: Barriers to access are up; the Alevel barriers to access have reduced the standing of the stakes. number of abortion providers is down; and number of abortions, and that any advance Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense the only legislative remedy is stalled in in abortion coverage in the current health Fund, (the leading legal strategy group of Congress with its future uncertain. care reform debate or improved access in any the Religious Right) said: “FOCA will way would be a reversal of their fortunes. strike down other laws, state and federal, Conclusion Abortion services are unavailable in 87% of that reduce abortions and will force states s a practical matter, militants like Mark the counties in the United States, accord - to facilitate abortions.... 125,000 children ACrutcher and advocates of incremen - ing to a study by the Alan Guttmacher Insti - were not killed this year because we have talism via policies that advance abortion tute. 33 these laws, and 125,000 children (added reduction do not disagree on ends so much Prochoice leaders recognize the situation to the existing 1.3 million abortions) will as means. But it should be noted that as well. NARAL reports that “more than be killed in 2009 and every year after if Crutcher and his ilk are not going to “dial 500 anti-choice measures have been FOCA is passed. FOCA is indeed a stag - down” their rhetoric or their activities just enacted in the states since 1995” and that gering expansion of abortion, both in prin - because some people would prefer that in effect these measures, all legal under ciple and in actual lives lost.” 34 they do so. Casey, are “essentially rolling back this fun - A 2009 Washington Post story on post- “Obviously, we cannot look for common damental right for many women.” Such Casey abortion reduction policy battles in ground with these people;” Crutcher laws are known as TRAP laws (Targeted the states underscored the effectiveness of declared in 2006, “without giving the Regulation of Abortion Providers).These the TRAP laws. The article focuses on impression that even we believe their posi - include, among others, abortion bans after Mississippi as an example of “one of the tion has at least some moral legitimacy. It 12 weeks, counseling with an antiabortion most restrictive states in the country and would be no different than if representatives slant, mandatory delays, insurance prohi - a model for antiabortion forces elsewhere.” of the Jewish people would have agreed to bitions for abortion, and allowing health Women seeking abortions “must go twice sit down and look for common ground with care providers such as hospitals to refuse to to the clinic, at least 24 hours apart.”This the Nazis while the ovens at Auschwitz provide medical services and referrals. can be significant in terms of travel time and were burning day and night. The Nazis In 2009, improved access was nowhere costs since Mississippi, which used to have would have loved it because it would have on the national political or legislative six clinics, now has only one.The Chicago- given moral credibility to their position. agenda in Washington, apparently so that based Americans United for Life, a key anti- “When we agree to look for ways to fighting over abortion would not derail abortion legal strategy center, takes credit reduce the ‘need for abortion’,” he con - healthcare reform. Even some prochoice for “helping state after state become more tinued (making the same point at the groups and legislators went along with pro-life every year.” “The greater goal, spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops this.The key piece of prochoice legislation even in legislation, is to influence the cul - quoted above), “by definition we are con - is the Freedom of Choice Act, (FOCA) ture,” said Terri Herring, head of Missis - ceding that such a need exists. After all, which has been introduced in every Con - sippi’s Pro-Life America Network. “This is rational people don’t go looking for some - gress since 1989. FOCA would codify Roe a major culture war that isn’t going away.” 35 thing unless they believe it actually exists. v.Wade, and eliminate the legal barriers to All this is occurring in a hostile and In other words, when we engage in com -

THE PUBLIC EYE 21 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye mon ground discussions we reinforce one reproductive-health-care-coverage-bring-it 24 Simone Campbell and John Gehring, “What makes lib - 10 Deal W. Hudson, “Doug Johnson on the Obama Abor - erals and conservatives angry? Abortion reduction,” The of the abortion lobby’s fundamental argu - Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 23, 2009. http://blog.cleve - 37 tion Reduction Scam,” InsideCatholic.com, September 26, ments.” 2008. http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option= land.com/pdopinion/2009/03/what_makes_liber - The strategy of the antiabortion move - com_myblog&show=Doug-Johnson-on-the-Obama- als_and_conser. For related discussions, see Frederick Abortion-Reduction-Scam.html&Itemid=127 Clarkson, “Four Canards about Abortion Reduction,” ment, which like any other movement is Talk to Action, March 28, 2009. http://www.talk2 11 never homogeneous, has nevertheless Sarah Posner, “Obama’s Faithful Flock,” The Nation, July action.org/story/2009/3/28/143045/459/Front_Page/Four_ 15, 2009. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090803/ Canards_about_Abortion_Reduction and Frederick changed little since the 1990s when abor - posner/single Clarkson, “The New Secular Fundamentalist Conspir - tion reduction became, in all of its variants, 12 Rachel Laser, Robert P, Jones, Samuel Rodriguez, Joel acy!” The Public Eye, Summer 2008. http://www.public - eye.org/magazine/v23n1/secular_fundamentalist.html a major thrust of the movement. Political Hunter, Katie Paris, David Gushee, Ronald Sider, “Come Let Us Reason Together: A Governing Agenda to End 25 Frederick Clarkson, “The Battle for the Mainline realism on the part of both militants and the Culture Wars,”Third Way, January 2009 ( The Amer - Churches,” The Public Eye, Spring 2006. http://www.pub pragmatists, the reality of the steady decline ica We Seek co-author Jim Wallis was one of a number liceye.org/magazine/v20n1/clarkson_battle.html of prominent endorsers). http://www.thirdway.org/clurt in the number of abortion providers, and 26 Notably John Richard Neuhaus, George Weigel, Robert 13 David Gushee, “Come Let Us Reason Together Gov - P. George, Mary Ann Glendon, and Michael Novak. See the increase in state level obstacles make erning Agenda PressTeleconference Opening Remarks,” Andrew J. Weaver, “Neocon Catholics target mainline Mark Crutcher’s aphorism of the 1990s as January 15, 2009 http://www.thirdway.org/data/prod - Protestants: Institute on Religion and Democracy leads uct/file/183/Come_Let_Us_Reason_Together_Govern - serious breach of ecumenical good will,” Media Trans - true today as it was in 1992. ing_Agenda_Opening_Remarks.pdf parency, August 11, 2006. http://www.mediatrans - 14 Rachel Laser, “Come Let Us Reason Together Govern - parency.org/story.php?storyID=142 ing Agenda Press Teleconference Opening Remarks,” 27 Adele M. Stan, “New Tactics and Coalitions Take Aim End Notes January 15, 2009. http://www.thirdway.org/data/ at Planned Parenthood,” The Public Eye, Spring 2009. 1 Jacqueline L. Salmon, “Some Abortion Foes Shifting Focus product/file/183/Come_Let_Us_Reason_Together_ http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v24n1/new-tactics- From Ban to Reduction,” The Washington Post , Novem - Governing_Agenda_Opening_Remarks.pdf coalitions-take-aim ber 18, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con - 15 David Brody, “White House to Meet with Conservative 28 Tami Abdollah, “Orange County board votes to suspend tent/article/2008/11/17/AR2008111703682.html Evangelical Groups,” The Brody File, March 16, 2009 Planned Parenthood contract,” Los AngelesTimes, March 2 Frederick Clarkson, Eternal Hostility:The Struggle Between 16 Gloria Feldt, “Beyond Roe: Thanks to the Supreme 10, 2009. Theocracy and Democracy (Common Courage Press, Court’s best-known decision, the women’s movement is 29 ShawnTowey, Stephanie Poggi and Rachael Roth, “Abor - 1997), p. 171. stalled. Here’s how to restart it,” Democracy Journal, Issue tion Funding: A Matter of Justice,” National Network 3 Frederick Clarkson, “Anti-Abortion Violence: Two #11, Winter 2009. of Abortion Funds, Boston, Mass., 2005. Decades of Arson, Bombs and Murder,” Intelligence 17 Dan Gilgoff, “White House Discerns ‘Need for Abor - http://www.nnaf.org/pdf/NNAF%20Policy%20Report.pdf Report, Summer 1998. tion’, But Some Disagree,” God & Country blog, 30 CBS Evening News, July 21, 2009. http://www.cbsnews. 4 Frederick Clarkson, “Anti-Abortion Extremists: ‘Patriots’ U.S. News & World Report, June 30, 2009. http:// com/stories/2009/07/21/eveningnews/main5178682.shtml www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/ and Racists Converge, Intelligence Report, ” Summer 31 David D. Kirkpatrick, “Abortion Fight Complicates 1998. 06/30/white-house-discerns-need-for-abortion-but-some- disagree.html Debate on Health Care,” The NewYorkTimes, Septem - 5 See for example, Frederick Clarkson, “[I] Pray For Barack ber 28, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/health/ 18 ObamaTo Die And GoTo Hell”: The StoryThe Media Rachel Zoll, “Bishops discuss authority over Catholic col - policy/29abortion.html leges,” Associated Press, November 18, 2009. Missed,” Religion Dispatches, September 1, 2009. 32 Jody Feder, “The History and Effect of Conscience http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religiousright/1801/ 19 Frank Cocozzelli, “The Politics of Schism: The Right- Clause Laws,” American Law Division, Congressional 6 Jessica Arons and Shira Saperstein, “The Right Way to wingTakeover of the Catholic Church,” The Public Eye, Research Service, January 14, 2005. Fall 2009. Reduce Abortion,” Center for American Progress, Janu - 33 Rachel K. Jones, Mia R. S. Zolna, Stanley K. Henshaw ary 20, 2006. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/ 20 David Gushee, “Mr. President, we need more than lip and Lawrence B. Finer, “Abortion in the United States: 01/b1363989.html service,” USA Today, March 16, 2009. Incidence and Access to Services, 2005,” Perspectives on 7 Rachel Laser and Michael Earls, “A New Direction on 20 Duke Helfand, “Aging of Catholic bishops could lead to Sexual and Reproductive Health, Volume 40, Issue 1, Abortion for Progressives: Winning The Battle of Rea - rebirth,” Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2009. March 2008. sonableness,” Third Way, September 16, 2006. 34 20 Sarah Posner, “The FundamentalList, #68,” The Amer - Matt Bowman, Barack Obama’s “Freedom of Choice Act” http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10218808/A-New- Would Mean 125K More Abortions, LifeSiteNews.Com, Direction-on-Abortion-for-Progressives-Winning-The ican Prospect , February 18, 2009. http://www.prospect.org/ cs/articles?article=the_fundamentalist_021809 September 24, 2008. 8 The political premises behind common ground have been 35 21 Peter Slevin, “Antiabortion Efforts Move to the State challenged, along with the efficacy of the policies most David Gushee, “Mr. President, we need more than lip service,” USA Today, March 16, 2009. Level: Legislatures Often Mandate Restrictions,” The likely to flow from them. For an example of the electoral Washington Post, June 8, 2009. http://www.washington - 22 argument for common groundism, see Stephen F. See An Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Abortion as a post.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/07/ Schenck, “Common Ground Decides Elections,” RH Moral Decision, Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, AR2009060702500.html?nav=rss_email/components Reality Check, July 2, 2009. Two examples of challenges Justice, and Healing , September 30, 2009. 36 to the electoral efficacy of faith outreach oriented com - http://www.religiousinstitute.org/sites/default/files/ope Feminist Majority Foundation, 2008 National ClinicVio - mon groundism are: Chip Berlet, “Common Ground: n_letters/abortionopenletter.pdf ; Religious Leaders Urge lence Survey, February 2009. Winning the Battle, Losing the Culture War,” Religion Congress To Include Abortion Services in Health Care 37 Mark Crutcher, “Don’t Be So Open Minded that Your Dispatches, May 19, 2009; http://www.religiondis - Reform, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Brain Falls Out,” Mark’s Blog, April 6, 2006. http://www. patches.org/archive/religiousright/1439/common_ground:_wi September 23, 2009. http://www.rcrc.org/news/access_to_ markcrutcherblog.com/index.cfm/common-ground and Jodi Jacob - nning_the_battle,_losing_the_culture_war abortion.cfm ; Catholics Support Healthcare Reform, 38 sen, RH Reality Check, July 7, 2009. http://www.rhreal - Including Coverage for Abortion, Catholics for a Free I first reported the origins of the contemporary abortion itycheck.org/blog/2009/07/02/just-facts-sir-the-false-dichotom Choice, September, 30 2009. http://www.catholicsfor - reduction agenda in Frederick Clarkson, “Where Did the y-catholics-vs-prochoice-common-ground choice.org/CatholicsSupportHealthcareReform.asp Abortion Reduction Agenda Come From?” RH Reality Check, February 16, 2009. http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/ 9 Christine Cupaiuolo, “Common Ground Reached in 23 See Frederick Clarkson, “The Rise of Dominionism: blog/2009/02/13/where-did-abortion-reduction-agenda- Ryan/DeLauro Bill; Want Reproductive Health Care Cov - Remaking America as a Christian Nation,” The Public come-from erage? Bring It,” Our Bodies Ourselves Blog, July 23, Eye, Winter 2005. http://www.publiceye.org/maga - 2009. http://www.ourbodiesourblog.org/blog/2009/07/com - zine/v19n3/clarkson_dominionism.html Anti-abortion Strategy continues on page 14 mon-ground-reached-in-ryandelauro-bill-want-

THE PUBLIC EYE 22 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye NEW CHRISTIAN ZIONISM cont’d from page 1 with Christian Zionists are the lobby group American Israel Political Action Commit - tee (AIPAC), which hosted Hagee as a conference keynote speaker in 2007, and Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, who attended a CUFI summit last July. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, a very different kind of “pro- Israel” gathering was taking place. J Street, the “pro-peace, pro-Israel” lobby group, was holding its first national conference with panels featuring American, Israeli and Palestinian speakers. Hundreds gath - s ered in the ballroom of the Washington e g a m D.C. Grand Hyatt for the conference, I y t t e

whose program explicitly stated that J G / P F

Street aims to challenge “right-wing Chris - A / z e tian Zionists” —the very people Wiesel was u G

2 k c addressing. a J J Street’s leaders are not the first in the The mayor of the West Bank settlement town of Ariel, Ron Nachman, gives a gift to Christian Zionist John Jewish community to resist the embrace of Hagee and his wife Diana during the couple’s visit in 2008. Pastor Hagee’s movement has donated mil - Christian Zionism. Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the lions of dollars to the settlement and supports a “greater Israel” that includes Palestinian territory. Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism accepted by the surviving Jews, and reign ing. However, these charismatic also believe has stated that an alliance with Christian for a thousand years.This belief motivates that God directly reveals new prophecy to Zionists must be rejected for the sake of adherents to send funds for West Bank set - their leaders who are unifying the church 3 Israel. Still, there has been little education tlements, to lobby for preemptive wars in preparation for the end times. In their in the Jewish community on the precise seen as precursors to the end times, and sup - increasingly popular narrative, it is not nature of these dangers. Indeed, some Jews port Jews in the diaspora to make aliyah and unconverted but converted or so-called may avoid publicly criticizing Christian move to Israel. Messianic Jews who will serve as the trig - Zionists out of concern that it would dam - ger for the return of Jesus and the advent age interfaith relation s— though Christians of the millennial (thousand year) kingdom show no hesitation in criticizing Hagee. on earth.This growing belief is driving the Others, including a few questioned at the Some Christian Zionists movement to aggressively proselytize Jews J Street conference, say Christian Zionist and to support “Messianic” ministries in beliefs are of absolutely no interest to them. believe a second both Israel and Jewish communities world - Yet it is their beliefs about the end times wide. One splinter group has even taken which drive their activism.The traditional holocaust is necessary this story to an extreme, saying they them - fundamentalist leaders of the movement selves are the “true Israelites” who will play preach that Jews returning to the Holy Land to force the repentance the prophetic role of establishing heaven are a necessary part of the end times in on earth by moving to Israel. which born-again Christians will escape of Jews. As we shall see, these distinct end times death as they are raptured into heaven. Jews narratives share an implicit antisemitism, and other nonbelievers will remain on creating the movement’s paradoxical earth to suffer under the seven-year reign Now Christian Zionis m—along with love/hate relationship with the Jews. Far of the Antichrist. Then, as the story goes, much of evangelicalis m— is being swept from positive, the obsessive “philosemitism” Jesus will come back with his armies, be by beliefs from the independent charismatic —or love of Jews —of Christian Zionists and Pentecostal streams of Christianity is tied to a volatile and changing view of the Rachel Tabachnick is an independent that change the role of Jews in their end end times that also changes their view of researcher and contributor to Talk2Action. times narratives. 4 These charismatics, like how they should “support” Jews and Israel org, the group blog about the Christian Pentecostals, believe that they are endowed in fulfilling prophecy. And this obsession Right. She frequently presents workshops by God with supernatural spiritual gifts has a history of turning ugly. and talks about Christian Zionism. such as speaking in tongues and faith heal -

THE PUBLIC EYE 23 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

Antisemitism and the History fill their prophetic destiny. above “Why Christians Should Love Jews” of Christian Zionism Hagee is always careful not to use the on its back cover promotion. 10 Its author he partnership of Christian Zionists phrase “second holocaust,” but he drew on is Richard Booker, who has worked with Twith Israeli leaders dates back to the this motif when he notoriously said that the Christian Allies Caucus and Jerusalem 1970s, when Israeli prime minister Men - Hitler was a hunter sent by God, prompt - Connection, headed by former CUFI achim Begin of the Likud Party and Chris - ing John McCain to reject his endorsement director James Hutchens. 11 Another promi - tian Right leader Jerry Falwell joined forces in the 2008 Presidential race. 6 The Anti- nent Christian Zionist describes this sec - to oppose U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman ond holocaust as “beyond the horrors of support for a Palestinian state. Israel’s and other Jewish leaders should not have Sobibor,Treblinka, and Auschwit z— all of alliance with Christian Zionists has only accepted Hagee at face value when he said the death camps combined.” 12 These grown in recent decades. As support from he was joining rabbinical discourse in mak - Christian Zionists believe a second holo - increasingly alienated U.S. Jews lagged, ing his Hitler remark. 7 caust is necessary to force the repentance Christian Zionists filled the gap with dona - Christian Zionist literature regularly of Jews. tions and tourism. Israeli Ambassador Oren uses this threat of the second holocaust to Hagee argues that his support for Israel even rejected an invitation to attend J has “absolutely nothing to do with escha - Street’s October conference while attend - tology,” 13 referring to end times theology. ing CUFI’s in July. 5 Yet he has built an international broadcast Ambassador Oren would be wise to Christian Zionists audience advertised as reaching 190 nations reconsider his choice of allies. with his apocalyptic sermons echoing these Camouflaged in love and an exuberant openly portray Jews themes. Hagee often delivers these ser - support for Israel, Hagee and other Chris - mons while standing in front of large pan - tian Zionists openly teach narratives that not as ordinary people, els illustrating figures of the end times parallel the story lines of overt antisemitism including the Antichrist – who he describes in which Jews are portrayed not as ordinary but as superhuman or as gay and “partially Jewish as was Adolph people, but as superhuman or subhuman. Hitler” —and the “Great Harlot of Mystery With almost no challenge (and often subhuman, paralleling Babylon,” whom Hagee claims represents endorsement) from Jewish leadership, “Romanism” or the Roman Catholic Christian Zionists are stripping away the antisemitic story lines. church. 14 hard-won humanity of Jews with a broad - Former Israeli Ambassador Dore Gold, cast capacity and international reach that when questioned about the dangers of this overtly antisemitic organizations could warn, or intimidate, Jews to move to Israel end times eschatology—which ends with never match. Their belief that they are sav - before it is “too late,” and steeps it with addi - the destruction of Judaism—responded, ing Jews from themselves allows them to tional antisemitic imagery. In Let My Peo - “All religions have eschatology. The ques - proceed with a sense of self-righteousness ple Go, Tom Hess describes his vision of tion is whether somebody believes they can and to draw in millions of well-meaning trains taking fleeing Jews from the major move the clock of eschatology forward by people. History demonstrates that once this cities of the world as they voluntarily leave themselves. The only one who says that is humanity has been stripped away, the door for Israel, thus saving themselves from an Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of is opened for unconcealed hatred, fear, impending holocaust. Its cover shows a Iran.” 15 and even genocide of these perceived super - Jewish businessman chained to Wall Street, But in fact many Christian Zionists do human/subhuman beings. and the book is filled with stereotypes of believe they can move the clock, as a quick Even the long-established Christian Jews as money-oriented materialists and glance at Armageddonbooks.com shows. Zionist narrative has antisemitic under - worse. 8 Hess’ ministry, based in Israel, Among the titles is Hastening the Coming tones. Some Christian Zionists talk about sends the books to Jewish households of the Messiah, Your Role in Fulfilling themselves as “fishers” who entice Jews to around the world, and claims to have dis - Prophecy. The author, Johannes Facius, is move to Israel, while “hunters” are those tributed tens of thousands to the “fish” as a former head of the Ebenezer Emergency who violently force the Jews who are unre - he calls the Jews of Russia and Ukraine. Fund and Operation Exodus, credited sponsive to the fishers. This well-used Hess also hosts the annual Christian with moving over 116,000 Jews to Israel motif —found throughout the movement’s Governmental Leaders Luncheon in con - from the former Soviet Union. Hagee’s medi a—is problematic for many reasons, junction with the Knesset’s Christian Allies mentor Derek Prince wrote the foreword. not in the least in requiring a worldwide Caucus. 9 Its fourth chapter is titled “Fishers and wave of antisemitism, described by some Another book, Blow the Trumpet in Hunters.” 16 as a second holocaust, to ensure Jews ful - Zion, lists “The Jew’s Final Holocaust” John Hagee’s ministry magazine also

THE PUBLIC EYE 24 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye suggests evangelicals can move the clock by donating to Hagee’s ministry. In an issue with a dramatic war scene and the words “World War III Has Begun” on its cover, a page two ad solicits funds with the headline, “Become a Part of Biblical Prophecy.”The ad’s donation form states, “I want to be a part of fulfillment of prophecy and the courageous effort to return Jewish families to their homeland.” 17

Millennialism and Anti - semitism, Past and Present m o c .

nless put in the context of these par - s n o o t

adoxical end times narratives, it is r a

U c l a c

easy to misinterpret Christian Zionists’ i t i l o millennial obsession. CUFI’s Jewish par - p / e i j o

ticipants are moved by the Christian Zion - u ist outpouring of emotion for Israel, and the L trappings of Jewish ritual: blowing shofars, gic alliances of the moment, described its own history of embracing antisemitism. singing in Hebrew, wearing tallitot (prayer Germans as either fellow “Israelites” or Many leaders such as William Bell Riley, shawls), and celebrating Jewish holidays. descendants of the hated Assyrians.These perhaps the major leader of fundamental - The CUFI “Night to Honor Israel” event philosemitic British Israelites attacked ism, merged religious narratives with sec - at whichWiesel spoke was double-billed as antisemitism from the pages of the journal ular antisemitic conspiracies including the “Feast of Tabernacles,” 18 a celebration The Banner of Israel. 22 But a prominent The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which based on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot British Israelite was also editor of the noto - they saw as supporting their end times which Hagee infuses with a millennial and riously antisemitic Dearborn Independent, narrative. 25 Christian supremacist theology. a lead newspaper publishing conspiracies Today’s internationally broadcast Chris - Wiesel acknowledged the outpouring of based on the notorious forgery The Proto - tian Zionist media is a major source of anti- support for Israel at the event, saying, cols of the Elders of Zion. The movement’s Jewish conspiracy thinking and features “Never in the history of my people have we philosemitism easily transitioned into anti - New World Order conspiracism. 26 Hagee witnessed an event such as this.” 20 Yet the semitism. preaches from the pulpit that the Ameri - current wave of Christian Zionism is eerily The volatility of the last century’s obses - can dollar is being intentionally devalued reminiscent of the wave of Judeocentric sion with biblical genealogy and Judeo - through the Federal Reserve by a conspir - millennialism of a century ago, picking up centric narratives also spawned Christian acy of the Illuminati, Rothschilds, and on similar terminology and end times nar - Identity, the theology held by contempo - European bankers. 27 ratives. The millennial wave of the last rary White supremacists. They view Jews These narratives echo claims from the century included fascination with Hebrew as an evil race descending from Esau, and Middle Ages that Jews have supernatural roots, groups claiming to be Israelites, and see themselves as the true heirs of Israel. 23 control over the destiny of others, a con - a philosemitic embrace of Jews. Their practice often includes “Hebrew” cept that is now being spread by Christian Narratives based on biblical genealogy ritual including the “Feast ofTabernacles” Zionists to Africa and other continents, and Israelite “Identity” included Anglo- or based on Sukkot. paving the way for acceptance of viru - British-Israelism, which was exported to the Hagee shares this obsession with a dis - lently antisemitic conspiracy theories. United States and adopted by evangelists tinct race descended from Esau. In his Entire Christian Zionist books are ded - including Charles Parham, the founder book Jerusalem Countdown, he claims that icated to linking natural or human disas - of Pentecostalism. 21 Queen Victoria’s a genetically evil race of “half-breed Jews” ters to Israel. For instance, in John genealogy was traced back to King David, spawned Hitler and credits Esau’s descen - McTernan’s recent book, As America has and colonialism was justified as the proper dants with the persecution of Jews through - done to Israel, he claims that Hurricane Kat - role of the “chosen people” —Anglo- out history. 24 rina victims were drowned in their attics as Israelites. Like the Christian Zionists of The recognized theological source of God’s retribution for the removal of settlers today, they described wars in terms of bib - modern Christian Zionism is U.S. funda - from Gaza who had fled to their rooftops lical genealogy, and depending on strate - mentalism from the last century, which has to avoid eviction. 28 William Koenig’s 2004

THE PUBLIC EYE 25 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye book Eye to Eye lists terrorist attacks and with the future of this planet, and the Christian Zionism inTransition misfortunes of presidents as God’s revenge Christian church in large par t— at s Christian Zionism changes, attacks on America for “land for peace” negotia - least by the evangelical wing, which Aon Judaism are becoming more overt. tions. 29 The writers frame their accounts as the Jews most condem n— sees a The bulk of the shift in Christian Zionism pro-Israel, and the fulfillment of Genesis Restoration of the Chosen People yet is a result of the growing international 12:3, which reads, “And I will bless those to come. If the mass of the Jews dominance of charismatics who reject the who bless you, and the one who curses you knew how understandingly and sym - concept of being raptured and stress the con - I will curse.” pathetically all the prophecies con - version of Jews to trigger the end times. Hagee picks up on another antisemitic cerning them are being studied in the In their version of the end times drama, story line with a long history when he Church, and the faith that exists that they do not watch idly from the grand - demeans the much revered Rabbi Hillel. In these prophecies will find fulfillment stands of heaven after being raptured but Final Dawn over Jerusalem, Hagee states and that they will result in great Jew - remain on earth to fight evil and the that antisemitism comes from the bowels ish service to society at large, they Antichrist themselves. It is Jesus who of hell but, in the same book, claims Hil - would probably regard the Church remains in heaven until the job is completed lel was an “extremist” and his Pharisee fol - with another mind. 34 and a Christian Israel calls out for his lowers were “sword-carrying legalists” who The quote is from Henry Ford’s The return. This cleansing of the earth is done plotted to have Jesus killed. It is they, he International Jew, derived from his reading by the combined forces of charismatic or claims, who are responsible for Christian of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. “spirit-filled” Christians and their Messianic antisemitism. 30 partners, the term applied to Jews who The Jewish philosopher Martin convert but retain Jewish identity.The Buber analyzed how propaganda mis - shorthand catchphrase for this dis - characterizing the Pharisees as the If progressive Jewish organizations tinctive end times narrative involving more legalistic sect of Judaism in the converted Jews is “one new man in time of Jesus affected 1920s anti - are going to challenge the short - Yeshua.” semitism. Author Paul R. Mendes- Not surprisingly, the growing impor - Flor states about Buber, “Debating sighted embrace of Christian tance of converts in the end times nar - the opponents of Jewry, he realized that rative is encouraging a new wave of the anti-Pharisaism which pervaded Zionists, they will have to become proselytizing to convert Jews to Chris - modern attitudes toward Judaism was tianity. As Hagee’s Jewish allies are not only a distortion but animated literate in end times narratives. quick to point out, he publicly opposes virtually every species of metaphysical proselytizing, but much of his organi - anti-Semitism.” 31 The demonization of zation’s leadership and events are hosted Pharisees is becoming increasingly by those who have embraced this “one common today, particularly in Pentecostal Marketing efforts by CUFI and others new man” ideology and you can find it and other charismatic media.They equate to convince today’s Jews to embrace Chris - throughout Christian Zionist media. Hagee the Pharisees with a literal demon said to tian Zionists frequently cite the last cen - also publicly endorsed a Messianic ministry be the source of legalism and division in the tury’s support for “regathering of the Jews” in Israel. 35 32 church. in Palestine as evidence that the movement These charismatics identify with a coa - Today those Jewish leaders who embrace is friendly or benign. This cherry-picking lescing movement called the New Apostolic Christian Zionism heap ridicule on those of history ignores the fact that the same mil - Reformation (or simply “Apostolic and who resist, accusing them of being overly lennial narratives played a significant role Prophetic”) which teaches that a unified defensive. In Evangelicals and Israel, author in the objectification of, and obsession church will lead the fight during the end Stephen Spector quotes George W. Bush’s with, Jews in the early 20th century. Since times. Lou Engle, made famous in the foreign policy advisor Elliot Abrams as then these quasi-religious narratives have film Jesus Camp, is a leading “Apostle” in saying “anti-Christian bias seems to be the kept the motifs of antisemitism alive dur - the movement and Ted Haggard, the for - only form of prejudice that American Jews ing a time when overt antisemitism is not mer president of the National Association 33 consider respectable.” The unwillingness acceptable in society. Today’s Christian of Evangelicals, partnered in the move - of Jews to return the embrace of that era’s Zionism has reintroduced these dehu - ment’s launch. Sarah Palin has close ties to millennial-minded “philosemites” was also manizing narratives back into the main - leading Apostles and during the 2008 elec - ridiculed in a famous publication of 1920: stream of much of the evangelical world as tions their broadcasted prophecies claimed The future of the Jew, as prophetically well as the general public. that Palin was divinely “anointed” for lead - outlined, is intimately bound up ership. 36

THE THE PUBLIC EYE 26 FALL 2009 The Public Eye

CUFI director Stephen Strang is a also foundedThe King’s College and Sem - throughout the book Evangelicals and Israel prominent Apostle and uses his magazine, inary which has a special division to train as the ideal Christian Zionist who refuses Charisma, to promote it. 37 In celebration Messianics to become the “anointed Spirit- to proselytize and has no ulterior end times of Israel’s sixtieth birthday, Charisma filled team players in the redemption of all motives. 49 Prime Minister Benjamin dedicated much of its May 2008 issue to Israel.” 44 The seminary coordinates with Netanyahu has personally endorsed Stearn’s Christian Zionists and Messianics who Messianic Jewish Bible Institute, which ministry. 50 Evangelicals and Israel has are working to proselytize Jews in Israel. trains Messianic leaders in Jewish com - endorsements on the back cover from Another CUFI director, Robert Stearns, is munities in Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Rus - ADL’s Abraham Foxman and Walter Rus - the editor of a popular Apostolic and sia, and Ukraine in order to bring “life to sell Mead. And in a truly wrongheaded Prophetic magazine and cofounder of the the dead” as stated in its promotional review of the book in Foreign Affairs, Mead Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem materials. 45 suggested that Democrats court Christian (DPPJ). 38 The DPPJ is the largest single Another stated goal of the Christian Zionists to join their party. 51 Christian Zionist event, with advertised Zionist/Messianic partnership is to fight participation of 200,000 churches in 175 antisemitism. However while they are very Millennial Disillusionment: nations, and is endorsed by the Knesset’s anxious to defend Israel from an Islamic Better JewsThan the Jews Christian Allies Caucus. 39 world they view as a common enemy, this ichard Landes, director of the Center What are these 200,000 churches pray - conceals the fact that they are equally Rfor the Millennial Studies project of ing for when they pray for the peace of determined to save Israel from Judaism. Boston University, has described cycles of Jerusalem? millennial expectation and disappoint - In a 2005 Christian Broadcast Net - ment dating back to the year 1000. In work interview, Stearns said that all par - 1999 he described the modern wave as ticipating churches received the book Your Believing themselves to be constituting “the most sustained and unusu - People Shall Be My People which explains the ally philo-Judaic apocalyptic manifesta - “one new man in Yeshua” ideology and better Jews than the Jews, tion in the history of Christianity.” 52 Many pleads with churches to support Messianic Jewish leaders dismiss millennialism as ministries. 40 Author Don Finto introduces some Christian Zionists benign because they don’t believe that the a multidenominational council of charis - predicted trials or Jesus’ return to earth matic leaders whose mission is to “recog - call themselves the will take place. However, Landes warns nize and welcome Jewish believers in Yeshua that the real danger stems from the disillu - without requiring them to abandon their true Israelites. sionment when Jesus doesn’t come back. He Jewish identity and practice” with the asks, “How long can an apocalyptic wave “ultimate purpose in unifying the Body and continue? Does all this apocalyptic philo- restoring the Jewish believers to their right - In Your People Shall Be My People, Finto Judaism of the upswing imply a coming ful place in the hastening of the coming of quotes convert Dan Juster as stating “Rab - wave of equally intense anti-Judaism in the Lord Yeshua in glory and the full binic Judaism is a more severe departure the wake of (inevitable) disappointment?” 53 accomplishment of His work in the king - from biblical faith than I had ever realized We already are seeing the onset of dis - dom of God.” 41 in my early days of Jewish recovery... We illusionment with Jews who resist playing By repenting of the Holocaust and who are Jewish are biblical New Covenant their assigned prophetic role. Believing allowing Messianics to retain their Jewish Jews, not Rabbinic Jews!” 46 themselves to be better Jews than the Jews, identity, these Christian Zionists teach Stearns describes Juster as the Thomas Christian Zionists step in to fill the role that the stumbling blocks will be removed Jefferson of Messianic Judaism and a “sov - themselves. Like the British Israelites of the and Jews will convert in large numbers. In ereign vessel the Lord has raised up to pio - last century, today a group calling them - his book Prepare the Way, Stearns claimed neer this End-Time move.” Juster explained selves Ephraimites believe themselves to be that this is happening at an unprecedented to the 2009 Promise Keepers revival in the true Israelites. But unlike the British rate, stating, “Our elder brother is return - Boulder that, “The conversion of Israel is Israelites, they are multiracial, including ing from the dead.” 42 This echoes his CUFI a necessary precondition for ushering in the Whites, Blacks and Latinos, and even colleague Hagee, who after his infamous Messianic age. We can only accomplish this international. Hitler as hunter quote said, “Now they [the task by coming together as one new man. Members of Israel’s Likud Party are Jews] are physically alive, but they are not Only then will we have the power to con - working with these Ephraimites and other spiritually alive.” 43 vert Israel.” 47 Christian Zionists through World Likud, Stearns ally Jack Hayford, a charismatic Despite easily accessible evidence to headed by Danny Danon. 54 Following a leader who cofounded the Day of Prayer, the contrary, Robert Stearns was portrayed 2007 conference inTexas with Likud lead -

THE PUBLIC EYE 27 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye ers, Joel Bell and friends launched a new of Syria, two-thirds of Jordan, all of Iraq, and Christian Zionism Goes Global organization called Worldwide Biblical the northern portion of Saudi Arabia.” 59 n Singapore a stadium of people sings Zionism (WBZ) to provide housing; legal In his December 18, 2007 newsletter, Ipopular Messianic music in Hebrew. In assistance, employment aid, and military Wootten, unhappy with the then-current Zambia a network of churches defines itself training to Christian Zionists who wish to Israeli government, stated, “SOS Israel, an as Messianic, calls its preachers “rabbis,” and make aliyah to Israel and the West Bank. 55 umbrella group of Jewish settlers now liv - celebrates Christianized versions of Jewish Several leaders in Benjamin Netanyahu’s ing in Judea and Samaria, has said that in holidays. In London, Christian Zionist government participated in the inaugural fulfillment of their biblical mandate they leaders endorsed by the Israeli Knesset’s WBZ event on November 16, 2008, will declare a new Jewish state independ - Christian Allies Caucus meet with members including Gideon Sa’ar, current Minister ent of Israel... Their objective is to form a of Parliament in order to lobby for support of Education; Ayoob Kara, Deputy Min - New Jewish Congress that will eventually of Israel based on biblical mandates. 64 In ister of Development of the Negev and gain sovereignty of the Jewish Nation over Germany, Christian Zionists who call them - Galilee; and Yulie Edelstein, Minister of the secular state.” Any Israeli government selves the Saxon Christian Friends of Israel Information and Diaspora Affairs. 56 Much that does not see Christian Zionists as part join with Israeli representatives to com - of the outreach in the United States has of the “Nation of Israel” is illegitimate, he memorate the Holocaust by attacking Islam been by Sagiv Assulin, the Knesset Leader charged. 60 as the “next reincarnation of fascism.” 65 of the Young. On August 10, 2008, as part of their A Nigerian pastor travels to Jerusalem One group reporting contact with international convention, the MIA con - and tells the Knesset that any nation that Assulin is the Messianic Israel Alliance ducted a “March to the Arch,” carrying does not serve Israel will perish, and adds (MIA), whose name is misleading since the banners, shofars, and flags, and wearing that African Christians “would love to kiss organization is comprised of Ephraimite t-shirts stating, “We are Israel.” 61 the feet of a Jew.” 66 Seven hundred Brazil - Christians who believe they have a right to It is not clear whether WBZ will succeed ians travel to Jerusalem to celebrate the land in Israel. Before their 2008 national in bringing substantial numbers of Chris - annual Feast ofTabernacles event sponsored convention, they formed a “Provisional tians to the West Bank even as Christian by the Christian Embassy of Jerusalem, Israelite Council in Exile” and demanded Zionist funds continue to flow to the joining thousands from around the globe. 67 their “inalienable right of return to their region; Ariel, described as the capital of In Tubingen, Germany, a congregation biblical inheritance and historical terri - “Samaria,” has a swimming pool named for described by the pastor as 70 percent tory located in current Samaria and CUFI director Billye Brim, located in the children and grandchildren of Nazis, “rec - Judea.” 57 “John Hagee Building.” In fact, there are onciles” with Jews by sponsoring Messianic The Ephraimites of MIA believe that signs of a backlash within Likud against music productions and joint Christian and they must be fruitful and fill the popula - Christian Zionism that could interfere Messianic Jewish events including Mes - tion gap that will occur as Israel expands with the Ephraimites fulfilling their hopes. sianic Holocaust memorial events. 68 These to its future borders and “to replace the Moshe Feiglin is among the most right- have now been imported to the United 235,000,000 non-Jews” who will be wing of Likud politicians, but he recently States. removed from the “Red Sea” to the “River disengaged from his partnership with From Argentina to Ukraine “pro-Israel” Euphrates.” MIA’s leader, Angus Wootten, Christian Zionists. 62 He wrote in the Jew - groups are singing in Hebrew to the same stated in a 2008 newsletter, “If YHVH ish Press, popular Messianic melodies, dressing in would tomorrow remove the million plus The Christian conquest is much similar costumes, and waving similar flags. Palestinians, who are citizens of Israel, and more dangerous than the Muslim It is increasingly difficult to tell if the the three and half million in the West conquest because it is not direct. It participants are Christian Zionists or Bank and the Gaza Strip, how would, or is not violent. Embracing and sup - Messianic Jews. how could, the present Jewish population portive, it connects with Israel against Christian Zionism is increasingly global, of Israel take possession of the land the the Muslim enemy. It supports a aggressively missionary, and openly attack - Palestinians had occupied? And if that isn’t Jewish Land of Israel in its entirety a big enough challenge, add taking pos - —even speaking up for the sanctity session of Southern Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, of the connection between the 58 Syria, Western Arabia, and the Sinai.” Nation of Israel, the Land of Israel Visit Right Web for profiles of the individuals Christian Zionists commonly describe and theTorah of Israel. It just forgets the millions of current occupants as and organizations promoting a militarist U.S. to specify which Nation of Israel foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. expendable, and John Hagee has written, and which Torah. 63 “In modern terms Israel rightfully owns all http://rightweb.irc-online.org of present-day Israel, all of Lebanon, half

THE PUBLIC EYE 28 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye ing Judaism as the obstacle to a Christian 12 Kay Arthur, chairwoman of the international board of 32 One example is Freedom from the Religious Spirit, edited the Christian Allies Caucus Women’s Council, sounds by C. Peter Wagner, about the demon which the authors utopia on earth. Nevertheless, the current these themes in her Israel My Beloved, (Eugene Oregon: claim is the source of legalism, stagnation, and division, Israeli government views the growth of Harvest House, 1996), p. 432. and cause of Pharisees’ rejection of Jesus. Christian Zionism as an opportunity for 13 Max Blumenthal, “Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized 33 Stephen Spector, Evangelicals and Israel (New York: building increased support internation - Christians United for Israel Tour,” 2007, [video]. Oxford University Press, 2009), p.114. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/rapture- 34 Henry Ford, The International Jew:TheWorld’s Foremost ally for Israeli policies and is endorsing the ready-the-unautho_b_57826.html Problem, (Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2003), pp.63- spread of this ideology and activism around 14 John Hagee, “Iraq the Final War,” Sermon 2 - “The Final 64, reprint of 1920 volume. the globe. Even liberals are uninformed on Dictator,” (Audio Cassette) John Hagee Ministries, ser - 35 RachelTabachnick, “Israeli Ambassador Rejects Amer - mon delivered on March 16 , 2003 and John Hagee, ican Jews, Embraces Hagee, Christian Zionists,” this issue. In a conversation at the J Street “Prophecy for the 21st Century,” Sermon 3,”The Great Talk2Action.org, October 16, 2009. http://www. Harlot of Mystery Babylon” [video]. conference, a U.S. Congressman told me talk2action.org/story/2009/10/16/152246/04 15 that Hagee could not possibly be spread - Max Blumenthal, “Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized 36 Lou Engle is a member of the Apostolic Council of Christians United for Israel Tour.” ing antisemitic notions. “You must be con - Prophetic Elders, leadsThe Call events held around the 16 Johannes Facius, Hastening the Coming of the Messiah: globe, and is a rising leader in the Religious Right fused,” he added. “Hagee is pro-Israel!” Your Role in Prophecy, (Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen recently hosting events including Newt Gingrich and The widely held belief that a visibly “pro- Books, 2003). See marketing at http://www.armaged - members of the Senate and Congress. BothTed Haggard donbooks.com/253hasten.html. and C. Peter Wagner have written about their partner - Israel” Christian Zionist could not possi - ship in developing the World Prayer Center in Colorado 17 JHMagazine, Vol. 18. No. 5, September/October 2006. bly be a danger to Jews needs to be Springs as the center of operations for the New Apostolic 18 http://www.jhm.org/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid= Reformation including Haggard’s book The Life Giving reevaluated. &nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A Church. Sarah Palin’s relationship with New Apostolics If J Street and other moderate and pro - 415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=1F0ABC417 including Alaska Apostle Mary Glazier is the subject gressive Jewish organizations are going to 5BD4088BF95EB5FC2E6F467 ;http://sacornerstone.org/ of the special focus section at http://www.talk2action. Media/DocumentLibrary/Cluster_2009-10-18.pdf . org/story/2008/9/5/114652/6239. challenge the shortsighted embrace of 19 John Hagee, Final Dawn Over Jerusalem (Nashville, 37 http://www.apostlesnet.net/members.htm Christian Zionists, they will have to become Thomas Nelson Inc. 1998) pp. 165-192.This theme is 38 http://www.kairos.org/letter/about.htm literate in end times narratives, and com - also in George Warnock, The Feast of the Tabernacles, (Canada, 1951 and Colombia, 2002). 39 http://www.daytopray.com/ petent in explaining the serious threats, to 20 “Wiesel Addresss Evangelical Christians,” JTA , Octo - 40 “Robert Stearns: Day of Prayer for the Peace of both Israel and Jews worldwide, from this ber 27, 2009. http://jta.org/news/article/2009/10/27/ Jerusalem,” 700 Club, September26, 2005. http://www. millennial movement . I 1008762/elie-wiesel-addresses-evangelical-christian- cbn.com/700club/Guests/Bios/Robert_Stearns092605.aspx organization 41 Don Finto, Your People Shall Be My People (Ventura, Cal - 21 Michael Barkun, Religion and the Racist Right,The Ori - ifornia: Regal Books, 2001) pp. 189,191. (Chapel Hill and gins of the Christian Identity Movement 42 Robert Stearns, Prepare theWay (Lake Mary, Florida: Cre - End Notes London: University of North Carolina Press,1997), p. ation House, 1999) p. 188. 53. 1 Michael E. Duke, “Pastor Hagee Donates $9 Million 22 Dollars toward Humanitarian Causes in Israel,” Jewish The Banner of Israel journal was published in London Herald Voice, October 29, 2009. from 1877 to 1926, by Robert Banks & Son of Fleet Street, London, according to the British-Israel-World Fed - 2 Quote from J Street 2009 conference program, “Driving eration. Compiled journals for some years can be viewed Change, Securing Peace.” online. 3 Shmuel Rosner, “Allying with Christian Zionist is Bad 23 An example of a current Esau-Edomite publication is for Israel,” Haaretz.com, April 3, 2008. Charles Weisman’s, Who is Esau-Edom?, which is mar - INTERNS WANTED! 4 This movement is also influencing the renewal movements keted on Identity sites including Pete Peters’ Scriptures within mainline Protestant churches and the charismatic for America. http://www.scripturesforamerica.org/cata - movement within Roman Catholicism. log/product_info.php?products_id=71 The Public Eye 5 Hilary Leila Kreiger, “Michael Oren Rejects J Street 24 John Hagee, Jerusalem Countdown (Lake Mary, Florida: The Public Eye welcomes interns Invite,” Jerusalem Post, October 21, 2009. FrontLine, 2006), p. 149. to join us in producing the only 25 6 John Hagee, “Jerusalem: Countdown to Crisis” Sermon “Apocalyptic Dualism and Conspiracism,” publiceye.org. magazine dedicated to exposing 3 - “The Battle for Jerusalem Has Begun” (DVD). John http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/protocol.html Hagee Ministries, sermon series delivered September 26 An example is the multipart series “Apocalypse and the the U.S. Right. 2005. EndTimes” on GodTV, December 2008 - March 2009, 7 Michelle Boorstein, “Elie Wiesel Speaks at John Hagee which included New World Order conspiracy theories. Political Research Associates Event,” Washington Post, October 27, 2009. 27 John Hagee, “Iraq the Final War” John Hagee Ministries, Political Research Associates, http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/godin 2003 (audio cassette). the parent think tank of The government/2009/10/hagee_too_hot_for_mccain_to_han 28 dle_but_ok_for_elie_wiesel.html; http://www.adl.org/ John P. McTernan, As America Has Done to Israel (USA: Public Eye, offers a research holocaust/letter_john_hagee.asp Xulon Press, 2006). 29 internship, and a communica - 8 William Koenig, Eye to Eye, Facing the Consequences of Tom Hess, Let My People Go, (USA: Progressive Vision tion and development internship. International, 2004). Dividing Israel (Alexandria, VA: About Him Publishing, 2004). 9 Yaacov Lapin, “Christians Fight for Israel,” YNetNews.com, 30 To apply, just email a letter and September 27, 2006. Also see Christian Allies Caucus site John Hagee, Final Dawn Over Jerusalem (Nashville, at http://www.cac.org.il/initiatives.htm. Thomas Nelson Inc. 1998) pp. 87-88. resume identifying the internship 31 10 Richard Booker, Blow the Trumpet in Zion, (Shippens - Paul R. Mendes-Flor, Divided Passions: Jewish Intellectuals that interests you to burg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, 1989). and the Experience of Modernity, (Detroit: Wayne State [email protected] University Press, 1991), p. 225. . 11 http://www.tjci.org/.

THE PUBLIC EYE 29 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

43 John Hagee, “Jerusalem: Countdown to Crisis” Sermon 53 Landes. 64 Etgar Lefkovits “UK Forum Promotes Christian Zionism,” 3 - “The Battle for Jerusalem Has Begun” (DVD) John January 28, 2007. 54 http://www.worldlikud.com/default_en.asp http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satel - Hagee Ministries, sermon series delivered September, lite?cid=1167467832541&pagename=JPost%2FJPAr - 2005. Note that this is the sermon for which Hagee 55 http://www.biblicalzionist.org/strategicWbzCenter.html; ticle%2FShowFull ; also reprinted on Jerusalem Summit received negative publicity in 2008, resulting in John also see RachelTabachnick, “Worldwide Biblical Zion - website. http://www.jerusalemsummit.org/eng/index_js_lon - McCain rejecting his endorsement. This quote imme - ists,” Talk2Action.org, October 19, 2009. don.php http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/10/19/175932/60. diately followed Hagee’s desciption of Hitler as a 65 “Jerusalem Summit Meets German Christian Zion - “hunter” helping to fulfill God’s will that Jews move to 56 For video of inaugural event see http://www.bibli - ists,” Jerusalem Summit. http://www.jerusalemsum - Israel. calzionist.org/tvprograms.asp. mit.org/eng/index_js_germany.php 44 http://TheKingsJewishVoice.org/ 57 http://www.messianicisrael.com/index2.php?option=com_ 66 Stephen Spector, Evangelicals and Israel (New York: 45 http://www.mjbi.org/ME2/Default.asp and http:// content&task=view&id=545&pop=1&pa Oxford University Press, 2009) p.25. Note that Spector www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhRweV61s68 58 Angus Wootten, “The MarchThrough the Arch,” Octo - misspells Apostle Zilly Aggrey, of the Royal House of 46 Finto, p. 146. ber 14, 2008, Messianic Israel Alliance. http://www.mes - Grace International Church, as Aggfey. sianicisrael.us/news/event-news/the-march-through-the-arch. 67 47 Stearns, p. 189. Chris Mitchell, “Feast of Tabernacles is the Time of html?Itemid=36 Christ’s Glory,” Christian Broadcast Network, Sep - 48 J. Terry Todd, “Promise Keepers 2.0: Women and Jews 59 John Hagee, Battle for Jerusalem (Nashville, Thomas tember 14, 2007. http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideis - Invited,” Religion Dispatches, August 5, 2009. Nelson, Inc. 2001) p. 236. rael/2007/September/Feast-of-Tabernacles-is-the-Time-of-M http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religious - essiahs-Glory/ right/1731/promise_keepers_2.0:__women_and_jews_invi 60 http://www.messianicisrael.com/news/briefings/is-a-smaller- 68 and ted?page=entire jewish-state-the-answer.html http://www.marchofremembrance.org/ http://www. tos.info/index.php?id=645&L=1. 49 See Spector. 61 “MarchThrough the Arch Video Recap” 2008 (Video),

50 http://www.messianicisraelorganization.info/news/event- www.eagleswings.to/Publisher/File.aspx?id=1000005188 news/march-through-the-arch-video-recap.html?Itemid=36. 51 Walter Russell Mead, “Evangelicals and Israel:The Story 62 http://go.ariel.muni.il/ariel/en/index.php?option=com_cont - of American Christian Zionism,” Jan/Feb Foreign Affairs, ent&task=view&id=193&Itemid=1 2009. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63640/wal - ter-russell-mead/evangelicals-and-israel-the-story-of- 63 Moshe Feiglin “No Strings Attached,” The Jewish Press, american-christian-zionism August 20, 2008. http://www.jewishpress.com/pager - oute.do/35244/ 52 Richard Landes, “What Happens When Jesus Doesn’t Come in 2000?” Center for Millennial Studies, Boston University. http://www.mille.org/people/rlpages/what happens.html

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THE PUBLIC EYE 30 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye GAYS IN AFRICA continued from page 1 To put on the conference, manipulating history; they know that there is a force behind the Uganda-based Family Life are manipulating facts in homosexuality which we need to Networ k— led by Stephen order to push their political tackle with force. He also told us that Langa with the goal of “restor - agenda.” Lively even labeled these people who are behind ing” traditional family val - abortion rights as “a product this…evil, they have all resources ues and morals in of the gay philosophy” that they need…to spread this evil. Ugand a— teamed with two meant to promote sexual [In] Africa, Uganda in particular...it U.S. hatemongers from the promiscuity in order to is more easy for the young generation Christian Right, Holocaust “destroy the family.” In sum, to get attracted into the evil. Since revisionist Scott Lively and he warned, U.S. homosex - that day…we need to stand firm to Dan Schmierer of the ex-gay uals are out to recruit young fight homosexuality. 1 In March 2009, Scott Lively, group Exodus International. the Holocaust revisionist and people into homosexual If only Lively’s influence ended there. Vocal opposition in interna - author of The Pink Swastika, lifestyles, and they must be But a few days later, he met with Ugandan tional circles did not stop the warned Ugandans that gays stopped. lawmakers and government officials, some country’s high profile reli - posed a dire threat to their Lively had a receptive children and society. of whom would draft parliament’s Anti- gious leaders, parliamentari - audience. Harry Mwebesa of Homosexuality Act of 2009 the next ans, police officers, teachers, and concerned Family Life Network told the crowd, month.This act would ban LGBT organ - parents from attending. Indeed, parlia - Dr. Scott told us about Brazil where izing and give the death penalty for gays, mentary action to wage war on gays was on 10 years ago, homosexuality was though not heterosexuals, who have sex the conference agenda. It was not enough unheard of….Today it is the capi - with someone underage or while infected that homosexuality is illegal in Uganda. As tal….There are people that have with the HIV/AIDS virus. 3 Lively and the one speaker stated from the podium, been against homosexuality that are “traditional family values” language of [The parliament] feels it is necessary having to leave because of the pres - U.S. antigay campaigners echoes through to draft a new law that deals com - sure and the threats that they are the draft legislation: prehensively with the issue of homo - putting on them.That is how serious Research indicates that the homo - sexuality and …takes into account it is. sexuality has a variety of negative the international gay agenda….Right consequences including higher inci - now there is a proposal that a new law dences of violence, sexually trans - 2 be drafted. Sadly, the sensitivity of mitted diseases, and use of drugs.The The unsuspecting audience heard Lively higher incidence of separation and promote his book, The Pink Swastika, and mainline church leaders break-up in homosexual relation - his argument that not only are gays seek - ships also creates a highly unstable ing to take over the world, but they also in the United States to environment for children raised by threaten society by causing higher rates of homosexuals through adoption or divorce, child abuse, and HIV/AIDS. charges of colonialism otherwise, and can have profound Legalizing homosexuality is on par with psychological consequences on those accepting “molestation of children or hav - can silence them from children. In addition, the promotion ing sex with animals,” he said. As Lively put of homosexual behavior undermines it, LGBT issues cannot be considered speaking out on our traditional family values. human rights issues. “The people coming Family Life Network’s Langa pushed to Africa now and advancing the idea that LGBT issues. people at a follow up meeting to stand up human rights serves the homosexual inter - for the tougher law against homosexuality ests are absolutely wrong,” he said. “Many for their children’s sake, echoing Lively in of them are outright liars and they are charging that Ugandan gays and activists Another participant who called himself were being paid by U.S. gays to recruit Elijah said, schoolchildren into homosexuality. Kapya Kaoma is an Anglican priest from The man of God [Scott Lively] told Amid the hysteria, any sense that homo - Zambia and project director of Political us about…a movement behind the sexuality has been in Africa from time Research Associates. He is author of PRA’s promotion of homosexuality and it immemorial was lost. While hardly October 2009 report, Globalizing the Cul - is called gay movement. Me, I had embraced, and indeed illegal in many ture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African never heard of that. But I got to countries, at least LGBT people were not Churches and Homophobia.

THE PUBLIC EYE 31 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye hounded by churches and police alik e— until American culture warriors came to Africa. Bishop Christopher Ssenjonyo, one of the most progressive voices on LGBT issues in Uganda, expressed his own concerns about the Americans’ role to me in March, “I am sure that these lies will incite public hatred against gays.”

How Did We Get Here? ow did we get to this point? Scott HLively and Don Schmierer are just two among a parade of right-leaning American Christians who have brought the U.S. cul - ture wars to Africa. But unlike the United States, in Africa sexual minorities are only thinly organized and have few allies who will stand up with them. Those who do are labeled neocolonialist and racist, because of the effectiveness of U.S. Right organizing in Africa. The result is tragedy. U.S. evangelicals like California’s Rick Forest, California has close ties with lead - Thankfully, because of Kenya’s demo - Warren have turned their attention to ers across Africa, including, until recently, cratic past and stronger civil society, citi - Africa as its role in global Christianity has Martin Ssempa of Uganda’s Makerere zens managed to challenge and slow down grown. As Warren recently told the Pew Community Church. Ssempa is one of efforts for broad criminalization of homo - Forum on Religion and Public Life, “If you the key architects of the antigay bill and per - sexuality. But in more authoritarian coun - want to know the future of evangelicalism, secution of LGBT people in Uganda. He tries, like Uganda and Nigeria, where some it is in [Africa, Asia and Latin America.]To made global news when he published the counties punish homosexuality with death, give you an example, in 1900 there were names of LGBT people in the local press U.S. religious conservatives are better able only 10 million Christians in all of Afric a— and destroyed condoms to promote absti - to promote their anti-LGBT agenda, build - 10% of the population.Today there are 360 nence-only programs in the fight against ing on decades of missionary work. million Christians in Africa, over half the HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Ssempa was a reg - population.” 4 Warren’s numbers are wrong ular visitor to Saddleback until Warren dis - and fewer than half of Africans are Chris - tanced himself from Ssempa in 2008. Rick Warren and tian. Still, 30 million of the Anglican Com - Within Africa, Warren seems to be pro - the Episcopalians munion’s 77 million members live in gressive when it comes to fighting poverty, Pastor Rick Warren’s partnership with Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya. illiteracy and HIV/AIDS and these efforts African religious leaders also extends to supporting breakaway Episcopal Warren is influential on the continent, have painted him as a real partner in devel - churches in the United States that join enjoying close ties to African religious and opment. However, his antipoverty and African dioceses rather than remain in political leaders.They quote him to justify education strategies also promote conser - American ones that support gay ordina - discrimination against LGBT people, and vative institutional power and ideologies in tion. 31 As early as 2005, he spoke at a to support their challenge to U.S. mainline Africa, including homophobia. conference for conservative Anglicans in Protestants who are liberalizing their poli - As Warren’s “purpose-driven” projects in 32 Pittsburgh. On the same day Warren cies around gay ordination. “Homosexu - Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda have claimed that homosexuality is not a human rights issue, he also supported ality is not a natural way of life and thus not grown, so too have levels of active homo - African Bishops for boycotting the Angli - a human right,” Warren said during a phobia and proposed laws against LGBT cans’ 2008 Lambeth Conference where March-April 2008 visit with African reli - people. And Warren’s allies – particularly gay ordination was a key agenda item. gious and political leaders in Rwanda, Anglican Archbishops Henry Orombi of “The Church of England is wrong [on Uganda, and Kenya.That quote has rever - Uganda, Peter Akinola of Nigeria, supporting LGBT clergy] and I support berated ever since. 5 Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda and Ben - the Church of Uganda on the boycott… Warren’s bestselling book, A Purpose jamin Nzimbi of Kenya – are in the fore - We shall not tolerate this aspect at all,” Driven Life is studied across sub-Saharan front of advocating for stiffer laws against he said. 33 Africa and his Saddleback Church in Lake LGBT persons in their countries. 6

THE PUBLIC EYE 32 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

Archbishop Orombi argues that U.S. paigns for “family values” in Africa rest on Africans are not aware that Robertson homosexuals should be kept out of Uganda rich indigenous notions of the importance supported the civil war in Angola and the because they are “taking advantage of the of family and procreation. In Africa, “fam - oppressive White governments of Rhode - abject poverty in Africa to lure people into ily” expresses the idea that to be human is sia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa. He their club [homosexuality].” 7 In neigh - to be embedded in community, a concept was one of many U.S. conservative evan - boring Nigeria, Archbishop Akinola wrote, called ubuntu. African tradition values pro - gelicals, some of whom came to Africa as “We are especially concerned about those creation, making those hindering this virtue missionaries in the 1980s, who sided with who are using large sums of money to lure seem like enemies of life. those White minority governments in their our youth to see homosexuality and les - effort to stop the spread of liberation the - bianism as normative. We must consis - ology. Allied with them wa s— and i s— the tently and faithfully teach about God’s Institute on Religion and Democracy commands on this ungodly practice and Ironically enough, although (IRD), a U.S. neoconservative group that help those with such orientation to seek also supported White regimes and chal - deliverance and pastoral counsel.” 8 American conservatives lenged the National Council of Churches (NCC) as a group of dangerous Marxists History of U.S. Conservatives repeatedly accuse progressives supporting subversion. The IRD formed in Africa in 1981 with the goal of weakening and f they had faced strong opposition, U.S. of being imperialist, it is splitting U.S. mainline denominations in Iconservatives might not have been so suc - order to block their powerful progressive cessful in promoting their homophobic their dealings with Africa that social witness promoting social and eco - politics.Traditionally, evangelical African nomic justice. 9 churches have been biblically and doctri - are extremely imperialistic. During this same period, the U.S. main - nally orthodox but socially progressive on line churches sided with oppressed Africans such issues as national liberation and living in White regimes. Along with expos - poverty, making them natural partners of ing the crimes committed in the name of the politically liberal western churches. fighting communism, these churches pro - But their religious orthodoxy also provides Although Rick Warren’s involvement in vided financial and social support to dis - the U.S. Right with an opportunity. Africa is the most celebrated, and Lively’s placed families in Africa, Asia, and South Africans resonate with the denunciation of perhaps the most notorious, they are not America. homosexuality as a postcolonial plot; their the first U.S. conservative evangelicals to But today the mainline churches are homophobia is as much an expression of influence African policies. Pat Robertson’s labeled as neocolonialists and this history resistance to the West as it is a statement television show The 700 Club is watched is forgotten. You can still hear snippets of about human sexuality. Similarly cam - across sub-Saharan Africa. Yet most the old right-wing scripts in today’s attacks on the mainline churches. James V. Hei - dinger II, the president of Good News, the United Methodist Church’s renewal move - Gays and Single Women ment which opposes gay ordination and In Africa, sexuality is linked to procreation. John C. Caldwell, Pat Caldwell and Pat supports conservative theology, claimed Quiggin argue that many Africans believe a virtuous person is one who has more chil - official Methodist churches lacked “a the - dren. How one gets these children is of little impor tance in African morality. 34 ology of mission but bought into liberation theology. Mission for them involves bring - The largest difference in African and Western notions of “traditional values” relates to ing about social and political change in extramarital affairs. In the United States, “family values” means one man-one wife. In third world countries. They favor social “traditional African family values,” a man can take pride in fathering children outside of ministry at the expense of evangelism.” 10 marriage. African politicians and religious leaders are likely to condemn homosexuality as Similarly, IRD’s executive director, Mark immoral while accepting a “celibate” priest fathering children among parishioners. 35 Tooley, recently sought an apology from the NCC and World Council of Churches In valuing procreation, Africans tend to be suspicious of both homosexuality and childless - for supporting “Marxist” revolutionaries in ness. An infertile person is a skeleton to be kept in the family closet, while siblings secretly Africa. His organization is a lead force in bear or conceive a child for a barren relative. In fact, women who insist on limiting their mobilizing renewal movements like families are sometimes considered as behaving in a “monstrous fashion.” 36 It is this fear that Heidinger’s to use African leaders and the U.S. conservatives have capitalized on in their presentation of homosexuality in Africa. debate about gay ordination and marriage

THE PUBLIC EYE 33 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye as a wedge in U.S. mainline conflicts – ical” conveys the notion of Protestant against gay ordination and marriage, help - IRD’s latest but perhaps most effective Christianity as a whole, without the sub - ing to further crystallize this as an African tactic in diminishing the social witness of stantive distinctions made by U.S. religious issue. At their behest, Anglican churches in its mainline church opponents (for more groups. And U.S. conservative evangelicals Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria rejected fund - on the U.S. conflict, see the box on this page support diverse Anglican, Presbyterian ing from The Episcopal Church USA in and my recent report, Globalizing the and Pentecostal church leadership in Africa 2004 over disagreements about gay ordi - Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African with which they share no denominational nation and other culture war issues. While Churches, and Homophobia). 11 tie. For instance, the Providence Christian these attacks have resulted in schisms within The torrential flow of conservative Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan the Episcopal Church USA and the Pres - Christian resources to Africa helps wash is not an Episcopal congregation yet it byterian Church USA and continue to away the memory of their alliances with provides funding to the Anglican Church threaten the unity of the United Methodist White regimes. Through their extensive of Uganda. 13 Some U.S. support goes Church, they offer African churches finan - communication networks in Africa, social directly to salaries, and has since 1998, as cial and ideological benefits, including a welfare projects, Bible schools, and edu - Reverend Aaron Mwesigyi of the Ugandan voice in international circles. As Kenya’s cational materials, U.S. religious conser - archbishop’s office explained. 14 Rosemary Mbongo told me, “Africans, vatives warn of the dangers of homosexuals Asians, and Latin American evangelical and present themselves as the true repre - Opposing Mainline Witness Christians have the voice today; they owe sentatives of U.S. evangelicalism, effec - hile U.S. evangelicals are actively dis - it to American conservatives.” tively marginalizing mainline U.S. churches Wseminating their antigay views Although conservative circles celebrate that once had strong relationships on the through their mission work, American this rejection of aid as a sign of Africans’ continent. Right-wing groups have enticed mainline renewal movements reach out to moral purity, Africans simply responded to African religious leaders to reject funding African churches for support in fights U.S. conservatives’ demands. A Kenyan from mainline denominations – which require documentation of how the money is spen t— and instead to accept funds How it Works:The Case of the Methodist General Conference from conservatives, further empowering the The renewal movements and the right-wing Institute on Religion and Democracy U.S. evangelical viewpoint while giving (IRD) mobilize their African allies to support anti-LGBT actions within the interna - local bishops the opportunity to line their tional conferences of their denominations. Before the United Methodist Church’s Gen - pockets. eral Conference in 2008, for instance, the IRD prepared the voting materials for African To reach Africans, U.S. evangelicals delegates. Joe Wesley Kilpatrick, the former vice president of a Georgia renewal group, now broadcast their Christian Broadcast - and Paul Law, the president of the ministry Appointment Congo, traveled across Africa ing Network (CBN) and Trinity Broad - training delegates to take the “right” side at the conference. 37 Unfortunately, the cam - casting Network (TBN) throughout paign materials misrepresented the UMC mainline leadership as ignoring the alleged sub-Saharan Africa. Although generally threat of Islam, and the persecution of Christian minorities in Africa and rejecting the disinterested in helping poor Blacks in authority of the Bible. 38 The materials also told Africans whom to vote for during the their own backyard, in Africa U.S. White General Conference. conservatives driven to convert the conti - Rev. Dr. Eunice Musa Iliya, the director of Directorate of Evangelism and Stewardship nent dominate social services, run orphan - of the United Methodist Church in Nigeria remembered, “I was under extreme pressure ages, schools and universities, and provide from conservatives to vote for conservative candidates. U.S conservatives told us to vote loans. 12 These conservatives and evangeli - for certain names as a way of saving the Church. We were told to use our “power” to cal charities like World Vision, Solar Light influence the outcome of the General Conference. …the UMC leadership was said to be for Africa, and the IRD-founded FiveTal - “practicing occultism, ignoring the expansion of Islam in Africa, rejecting the authority ents use their presence in Africa to address of the Bible and Jesus as well as promoting the homosexual agenda… I voted differently 39 the question of homosexuality from a con - from other African delegates because I knew those claims to be false.” servative albeit misleading position. In Dr. Iliya further pointed out that this misrepresentation did not end with the 2008 this way, almost all U.S. conservative Chris - General Convention. The U.S. conservative smear campaign for the next General tians working in Africa are responsible for Confer ence in 2010 has already begun. “In 2009, Steve Wood of the Confessing exporting homophobia to Africa. Movement came to West Africa to conduct leadership training sessions in different Indeed, Africans do not distinguish countries including Nigeria…. I was surprised with how much the U.S. church was between the moderate evangelicals in demonized by Steve. When I tried to ask a question, my Bishop (Jerry Kulah) told me World Vision and hard-right figures like to sit down. I was broken…These guys went to an extent of telling Africans to have Scott Lively. For them, the term “evangel - nothing to with American liberals and promised Africans scholarships.”

THE PUBLIC EYE 34 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

professor noted, “American conservatives churches, and other U.S. conservatives Local fears that this lack of accounta - have been in my office several times request - used it as an organizing tool to preach bility breeds corruption appear well ing that we cut ties with The Episcopal hatred against LGBT people. In addition grounded. Canon Alison Barfoot, an Amer - Church USA and other progressive funders to citing Robinson as an example of West - ican conservative, administers American in exchange for their funds.They have suc - ern corruption, they partnered with African funding at the Anglican Church of Uganda ceeded in getting small colleges into their religious leaders to demand that the Epis - headquarters without giving African camp but we have refused.” 15 copal Church USA be excommunicated accountants any access to U.S.-related The apparent plan is to encourage from the worldwide Anglican Communion financial information or books, we African church leaders to swap their rela - and replaced with conservative leadership. learned. 20 Furthermore, dissident U.S. tionships with mainline churches for U.S. The churches then used their “princi - Episcopal Bishop John Guernsey of Wood - conservative organizations and individuals. pled” rejection of mainline money as a bridge, Virginia, vets all U.S. donations and While it is largely U.S. evangelical fundraising opportunity. In appeals to mission partnerships with Uganda to money displacing mainline funds sup - U.S. conservatives, Canon Allison Bar - ensure they come from “friendly” churches, porting African churches, renewal move - foot said the Anglican church of Uganda and other U.S. conservatives play that role ments within mainline U.S. churches reap in Kampala lacked working phones because for other countries, bypassing usual safe - the rewards by securing the alliance guards. 21 Their safeguards are loose of Africans in fighting their battles enough that Bishop Samuel over gay ordination and other issues Sekadde, the retired Bishop of at home and in international ven - Namirembe, is under suspicion for ues. This effort started as early as Warren’s bestselling book, alleged misuse of church funds. 22 1999, when members of the IRD- The independent Uganda Monitor affiliated renewal movement inThe A Purpose Driven Life is studied across observed that the bishop’s estates Episcopal Church USA went to and private home suggest that “the Africa to ask African bishops to sub-Saharan Africa and his Saddleback good bishop was either living support suspending the American beyond his means or helping him - church from the worldwide Angli - Church in Lake Forest, California has self to church property.” 23 can Communion for being too gay friendly and socially liberal. close ties with leaders across Africa. Neocolonial relationship More recently, IRD and United espite historical evidence of Methodist Church renewal groups Dhomosexuality in Africa long organized African delegates to pre - before the Europeans arrived, most vent the United Methodist Church from it had rejected money from the Episcopal conservative African religious and political lifting its ban on the ordination of LGBT Church USA. 17 Two years after the Angli - leaders now view homosexuality as a West - clergy during its global General Confer - can Church of Kenya cut ties with the Epis - ern export, and a form of imperialism and ence in 2008. Jerald Walz of IRD put it this copal Church USA in 2004, the Reverend neocolonialism. And of course, U.S. con - way, “Wherever there is theological agree - Canon Rosemary Mbogo, its Provincial servatives exploit and encourage this belief. ment, Americans are making ways of help - Mission coordinator, appealed for tithing Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, ing their brothers and sisters both from U.S. evangelical churches “to help the whose wife is a close ally of Rick Warren, financially and theologically…In the Kenyan province.” 18 Their requests to U.S. warned, “It is a danger not only to the UMC, Americans reached out to the conservatives appear to have been answered, believers but to the whole of Africa. It is bad African delegates by helping them navigate since both churches confirmed that U.S. if our children become complacent and the system... Americans are also reaching conservatives provide regular funding to think that people who are not in order are out to their African friends by giving them churches in both countries. alright… These foreigners should go and a voice at international gatherings.” 16 U.S. evangelical money is attractive practice their nonsense elsewhere.” 24 Africa’s attacks on U.S. mainline because it does not come with the demands Because Africans are sensitive to neo - churches intensified when The Episcopal for strict accountability made by mainline colonialism, the conservative claim that Church USA consecrated an openly gay per - churches. 19 Bishops can spend it as they like. homosexuality is part of a “Western agenda” son, Gene Robinson, as a bishop in 2004. Ironically, U.S. conservatives have always gives African church leaders ammunition On the surface, Bishop Robinson’s conse - campaigned against “unrestricted” giving to demand greater influence and power in cration was an Episcopal issue. However, in U.S. mainline churches. But in Africa, the affairs of the church. 25 Denouncing renewal movements in the Episcopal, they prefer unrestricted giving as another homosexuality is Africa’s way of claiming United Methodist, and Presbyterian way of undermining progressives. power over the western world. In this

THE PUBLIC EYE 35 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye regard, when Africans claim that homo - sexuality is un-African, they are pointing to a politics of postcolonial identity. 26 This history gives the struggle greater depth and tenacity, and for that reason, African involvement in U.S. church issues will continue. Moreover, rejecting what is claimed to be an imposition from the West gives them power both within the African context and with American conservatives of all persuasions. Ironically enough, although American conservatives repeatedly accuse progressives of being imperialist, it is their dealings with Africa that are extremely imperialis - tic. Their flow of funds creates a form of clientelism, with the expectation that the recipients toe an ideological line. They

put words into the mouths of their African a m o church allies, even writing or rewriting a K a y their anticolonial statements to reflect U.S. p a conservative concerns. In one of many K The Family Life Network is a Ugandan group backed by U.S. evangelicals that promotes antigay laws examples, IRD reworked a statement the and sentiments. Rev. Jerry Kulah of Liberia wrote in prepa - ration for a 2008 Methodist conference to use as a general African statement, adding Sadly, the sensitivity of mainline church Thus U.S. conservatives whip up concerns in its anti-Islamic politics, leaders in the United States to charges of about Muslims and homosexuals simulta - colonialism can silence them from speak - neously in their attacks on mainline Cognizant of the massive silent inva - ing out on LGBT issues. The African churches’ social witness. Alan Wisdom, sion of Islam upon global community attacks create a dilemma for them: How can the Director of Presbyterian renewal group with its excessive and liberal use of they be relevant to their own global North Action for Faith and Freedom, observed that Arab-oil funds to propagate its faith, we context, while remaining connected to the U.S. mainline churches’ “desire to dia - are afraid that the current unre - global mainline Christianity? Unfortu - logue with Islam ignores the plights of the stricted embrace of liberalism within nately, the fear of isolation leads many Christian minorities in Islamic nations.” 28 the United Methodist Church is social and theological progressives in the In November 2008, Jim Tonkowich, endangering the chances of our chil - church to ignore social justice issues in their then IRD president, announced that his dren of not considering Christianity daily proclamations. While Episcopalians group was “beginning a project to research as a possibility. It creates a breeding risked schism to support gay bishops, U.S. how the actions of the Episcopal Church ground for the rapid expansion of Presbyterian and Methodist churches do promoting homosexuality is negatively Islam among our future posterity.” not openly ordain LGBT clergy. African impacting Christians in Africa who live [italics indicate IRD changes] 27 clergy directly threatened to cut links with within and alongside Muslim cultures.” 29 In contrast, U.S. mainline churches Presbyterians in 2004 if they did. Despite In a February 2009 telephone interview, repeatedly demonstrate their opposition to the active role American progressives played Faith McDonnell, the Director of IRD’s neocolonialism of all sorts, not least by sup - and continue to play in Africa, they were Religious Liberty Programs and of the porting the U.N.’s Millennium Develop - out-organized. Church Alliance for a New Sudan, ment Goals (MDGs) to fight poverty in explained, postcolonial Africa. Yet American conser - The Attack on Islam Islam prohibits homosexual - vatives succeed in dismissing such efforts nother U.S. conservative ploy is to ity…Radical Muslims would use it as neocolonial attempts to bribe Africans Asuggest that mainline churches’ as another reason for attacking Chris - into accepting homosexuality, which they accept ance of homosexuality puts African tians who would be viewed as infi - characterize as a purely Western phenom - Christian witness at a competitive disad - dels… We are competing with Islam enon. vantage with Islam in winning converts. in Africa. Muslims are going to use

THE PUBLIC EYE 36 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

the argument that Africans are part Indeed, Archbishop Orombi has coop - ences. They are also making new inroads of the wider communion which erated with Muslims in attacking LGBT with African religious leaders. It is a posi - accepts homosexuality. people in Uganda. But in 2007 he told his tive sign that the Archbishop of the Epis - American allies what they wanted to hear: copal Church of the Sudan and the Congo It has happened in the Sudan where Muslims are attempting to conquer “not so as well as bishops from West Africa traveled one Bishop has already formed the much by the sword but by the dollar. Mus - to the United States to attend the 2009 Reformed Episcopal Church by lims also are offering vocal opposition to General Convention of The Episcopal appealing to the argument that he is laws that protect women’s rights because… Church USA. Not only did American pro - not part of the Church of homosex - ‘these are not in the Koran.’” 30 gressives represent their positions in their uals. Homosexuality hampers the own words, the African leaders were able the Christian witness in Africa. to explore the American church’s intentions When asked whether IRD and its allied in Africa. Most of the African bishops renewal movements had evidence for such pointed to poverty as one of the biggest claims, McDonnell replied, “We do not Africans do not challenges Africa faces and sought the have any empirical evidence yet. This is church’s support in antipoverty struggle s— solely what Christians are thinking and it distinguish between the even though the Episcopal Church lifted the is damaging the witness among Chris - moratorium on blessing of same sex mar - tians.” moderate evangelicals riages and ordination of gays and lesbians However, even African religious con - to the office of the bishop. Although not all servatives discount this idea and there is no in World Vision and agreed with the position taken by the Epis - evidence for it in Uganda, Kenya, or Nige - copal Church on LGBT issues, African ria. One senior clergyman in Kenya told hard-right figures bishops were generally sympathetic with me, “Such an argument does not make their U.S. colleagues on the matter. sense… Islam has been part of the African like Scott Lively. The campaign challenging Rick Warren heritage in Kenya. My grandfather was to denounce the Anti-Homosexuality Bill Muslim and on his death bed he was bap - in Uganda – which he still has not don e— tized by his son who was the Bishop.” is another example of taking the fight to Similarly Paul Ssembiro, the Mission Coor - Conclusion America. Because the U.S. Right is so skill - dinator in Archbishop Orombi’s office he relationship between U.S. conser - ful at twisting the mainline church state - observed, “Uganda’s opposition to homo - Tvatives and African religious leaders is ments in Africa as colonial interference, sexuality has nothing to do with Islam. I inhibiting the right of LGBT people to live these challenges on conservatives’ home ter - don’t think it has anything to do with the freely and without persecution both in the ritory provide vital support for LGBT Islamic faith.”The Kenyan Anglican priest United States and Africa. In Africa, people’s Africans under attack. We must make sure Michael Kimindu noted that this argument lives are threatened not only by vigilantism that they are not the collateral damage in is intended to “elicit support from U.S. con - but by government action. If we agree that the U.S. culture wars. I servatives concerned about radical Islam.” African churches should be allowed to map their own agenda in the global church, then the conservatives should let go of End Notes Africa. Unfortunately, they will not, at least 1 The Southern Poverty Law Center has classified Scott not without a fight. Lively’s “Abiding Truth Ministries” as a hate group. It is important that progressive activists http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/type.jsp?DT=26 2 Help PRA and Public Eye in mainline churches are now taking the Family Life Network seminar, March 2009. 3 For full text of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, visit fight to conservatives and putting them on http://www.publiceye.org/publications/globalizing-the- Expose the Right! the defensive at home. In the United culture-wars/uganda-antigay-bill.php. Methodist Church, progressives managed 4 “ A Conversation with Pastor Rick Warren, Saddleback Donate $30, $60, $100 Church’s Signature Issues,” Pew Forum on Religion & to expose IRD and renewal movements’ Public Life, November 23, 2009. http://pew or whatever you can! attempt to influence African delegates to research.org/pubs/1422/rick-warren-saddleback-church- the 2008 international church gathering by transcript-signature-issues ...... giving out cellphones. 5 Evelyn Lirri, “Uganda: Gay Row - U.S. Pastor Supports Country on Boycott,” AllAfrica.com, March 29, 2008. In the Episcopal Church, progressives Visit www.publiceye.org http://allafrica.com/stories/200803281265.html exposed the presence of conservative lob - 6 More than A Name: State Sponsored Homophobia and Its byists at international Anglican confer - Consequences in Southern Africa (New York: Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian

THE PUBLIC EYE 37 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

Human Rights Commission, 2001). Voices from Nigeria: X Kenya; Bishop X and Bishop John Charles Odurkami On Boycott” AllAfrica, March 29, 2008. http:// Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, andTransgender speak out About in Uganda, March 2009. allafrica.com/stories/200803281265.html (New York: International Gay and Les - the Same-Sex Bill, 22 “Leave Ssekadde Alone-Katikiro,” Red Pepper, 34 “The Social Context of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.” bian Human Rights Commission, November, 2006); http://www.redpepper.ug/articles.php?item=767&&CatId= Population and Development Review, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Jun., Off the Map: How HIV/AIDS programming is Failing 2&PHPSESSID=6f65a965314db6f339798185e04f 1989), pp. 185-234, p.189. (New York: Inter - Same-Sex Practicing People in Africa, e19b. (Accessed, September 7, 2009). national Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, 35 Dominique Zahan, The Religion, Spirituality, andThought November, 2007). 23 Karoli Ssemogerere “Bishop Sekadde’s Final Triumph” ofTraditional Africa, (Chicago:The University of Chicago Uganda Monitor,http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/ Press, 1970), p.10. 7 Paul Aruho ,”Archbishop Orombi Re-affirms anti-gay publish/Karoli/Bishop_Sekadde_s_final_triumph_81360.s Stand,” Kampala, Uganda, 36 Caldwell and Caldwell, p.414. The Daily Monitor, html; Arthur George Kamya “Sekadde Saga Exemplifies http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/regional-spe - Anglican Communion Woes” Uganda Monitor, 37 “Conversation avec Joe. K en Afrique Accroitre Partic - cial/Archbishop_Orombi_re-affirms_anti- http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/opinions/Sekadde ipation de L’ Afrique au Sein Du Methodisme – uni,” Accessed, 11/24/2008. gay_stand_68015.shtml. _saga_exemplifies_Anglican_communion_woes_835 Institute for Religion and Democracy, November, 2007. 8 Peter Akinola, “Lent Pastoral letter,” Church of Nigeria. 60.shtml. (Accessed May 5, 2009). When contacted for an interview on these materials, Kirk - patrick declined an interview. http://www.anglican nig.org/main.php?k_j=13&d=73& 24 Milton Olupot and Daniel Edyegu, “Museveni backs (Accessed 05/13/2009). 38 p_t=index.php. church against gays,” Sunday Vision, August 17, 2008. Tipton, 2007. 9 For more on IRD in the United States, see Frederick Clark - http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/644954 39 Interview, September 6, 2009. son, “The Battle for the Mainline Churches,” Public Eye, 25 Miranda K. Hassett, Anglican Communion in Crisis: How Spring 2006. http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/ Episcopal Dissidents and Their African Allies Are Reshap - John Dorhauer, “Churches v20n1/clarkson_battle.html; ing Anglicanism, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Under Seige: Exposing the Right’s Attacks on Mainline Press, 2007), p. 13. Protestantism,” Public Eye, Summer 2007. http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v22n2/church_se 26 Rt. Rev. James Jones, “Making Space for Truth and Grace,” A Seeking Spirit, December 2007. http://aseek - ige.html EDITORIAL cont’d from page 2 ingspirit.wordpress.com/episcopal-unity-and- 10 Telephone interview, February 13, 2009. Also see diversity/making-space-for-truth-and-grace/ Miranda K. Hassett, Anglican Communion in Crisis: How der mainline denominations in the US Episcopal Dissidents and Their African Allies Are Reshap - 27 IRD. A Message from the Church in Africa: Declaration to ing Anglicanism, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University the 2008 General Conference, http://www.theird.org/ from pursuing legitimate and overdue Press), 2007. Document.Doc?id=36. Accessed June 12, 2009. For the social justice goals. 11 original, visit, Jerry P. Kulah “Declaration of the African Kapya Kaoma, Globalizing the CultureWars: U.S. Con - U. Methodist Church to the American U. Methodist As a retired Unitarian minister, I observe servatives, African Churches, and Homophobia (Somerville, Church.” A Conference For General And Jurisdictional this as an outsider, and I am proud that our MA: Political Research Associates, 2009). http://www. Conference Delegates And All United Methodist Com - publiceye.org/ark/africa-report/ mittedToThe Renewal And Unity OfThe Church Date: denomination, the Unitarian Universalist 12 Julie Hearn, “The Invisible NGO: U.S. Evangelical 26 -27 October, 2007. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f- Association, has moved relatively quickly Mission in Kenya,” Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 32. religion/1950365/posts. Accessed June 12, 2009. to embrace and lift up LGBT people at all (February 2002), pp. 32-60. Pp. 54-55 28 Alan Wisdom, telephone interview, February 12, 2009. levels of our religious community. 13 The Providence Christian Reformed Church gave 29 Jim Tonkowich, “1.2 Million Reasons for the IRD, ” Many thanks, and congratulations $115,000 to the Anglican Diocese of Mukono’s Mukono Institute of Religion and Democracy, 2008. House, which is a three-story commercial building. again. Karen Gorter, “Church Tithes Building Fund,” The 30 GregoryTomlin, “Ugandan Archbishop: Militant Islam Banner , May 2006. http://www.thebanner.org/maga - is Century’s Key Challenge,” Baptist Press, January 31, –Ralph Mero, West Chester, Penn. zine/article.cfm?article_id=464. 2007 14 Interview, March 2009. 31 Nicholas Knisely, “Rick Warren offers a home to con - servative Anglicans,” The Lead, January 9, 2009. 15 Esther Mombo interview, Limulu, Kenya, March, 2009. http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/news_reports/rick_war - 16 Phone interview with Jerald Walz, February 12, 2009. ren_offers_safe_harbor.html 17 “African bishops reject aid,” Washington Times, June 7, 32 Daniel Burke, “Rick Warren offers shelter for breakaway 2005. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/ Anglicans,” Religion News Service, January 13, 2009,. jun/07/20050607-115436-7061r/ http://pewforum.org/news/rss.php?NewsID=17327 18 David W. Virtue, “KENYA: Anglican Province Pays 33 Evelyn Lirri “Gay Row - U.S. Pastor Supports Country Heavy Price for rejection ofTEC Money over Sodomy,” Virtue Online, August 4, 2006. http://www.virtueon - line.org/portal/modules/news/article.php 19 The Presbyterian Lay Committee (PLC) campaigns against general giving by the PCUSA General Assembly. Read the best analysis of the Christian Right on In a 2008 appeal, PLC wrote: “In the Aftermath of the 218th Presbyterian Church U.S.A General Assembly this Talk2Action.org! June [when the issue of homosexuality was debated)] the Presbyterian Lay Committee recommends that Church sessions of faithful congregations restrict all mission Talk2Action is a group blog led by Public Eye writer and and per-capita gifts to ministries that are trusted by your congregation and do not send undesignated money in editorial board member Frederick Clarkson. Read weekly any form to denominational entities, boards or agencies.” The Presbyterian Lay Committee, “Do you know contributions from Fred, Political Research Associates where your tithes and offerings are going?” September/ October 2008. researcher Chip Berlet, and the rest of the best thinkers 20 Interview with sources in Archbishop Orombi’s account office. March 2009. about the Christian Right. 21 Interview with the Priest in Charge, Boston, May 2009; Visit Talk2Action.org. Bishop J, Interview, March 2009; Interviews with Canon

THE PUBLIC EYE 38 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye ……Reports in Review……

REPORT OF THE MONTH Making the Undocumented Count The study builds on a PricewaterhouseCoopers estimate that the The Next Economic Imperative: Undocumented Immigrants in undercount of undocumented people in the 2000 Census meant a the 2010 Census loss of $4 billion in federal funds that should have gone to states and By Afton Branche, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, New York municipalities from 2002 to 2012. Among the services underfunded City, July 2009. were healthcare and education as well as infrastructure improvements http://drummajorinstitute.org/pdfs/DMI_census_paper_final.pdf like federal highways and the Community Development Block Grant Program. The country has asked whether a resident is native born or for - An undercount also distorts commercial decisions since many busi - eign born since the first U.S. census in 1790. But the census has never nesses evaluate potential markets using the census’ demographic, asked whether a resident is here legally or not. As late as October, income, and residence information. Service industries in particular Republican senators tried to force the census to include that ques - overlook the consumer power of undocumented populations, pos - tion in 2010, not least because a state’s Congressional seats are deter - sibly leading to underinvestment that could help regional economies. mined by census counts. In this report, a liberal think tank outlines The report deftly outlines the concrete economic advantages of the economic costs of undercounting the 12 million undocumented counting all undocumented persons, but it could have better refuted immigrants expected to be in the country during the census. If the corrosive arguments presented by the Center for Immigration Stud - national headcount is not accurate, the country will underinvest at ies and Federation for American Immigration Reform. Still, this a time when greater investment is needed to counter the recession. remains a useful resource as the census battle continues.

Other Reports in Review Economic Crisis Changes Although 29 percent reported being more declined from 2002 to 2008. Not only has the Women’s Reproductive careful about using contraception because of number of clinics offering abortion services Decisions the economy, 18 percent of women on the pill dropped but they are increasingly clustered A Real-Time Look at the Impact of the cited inconsistent use as a way to save money. in the Metro-Boston area. Furthermore, Recession on Women’s Family Planning Furthermore, eight percent of women reported state-funded healthcare restricts options to and Pregnancy Decisions not using contraception at all in order to save lower income women who need it most. Guttmacher Institute, New York, N.Y., money. Guttmacher also found that women Forty-three percent of the state’s counties September 2009. are more likely to delay visits to the gynecol - have no accessible providers.The large west - http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/RecessionFP.pdf ogist and forgo contraception to cut costs. ern part of the state has the highest rate of Women’s financial status and sexual health These statistics show that while financial inse - unintended pregnancies (34 percent), and are tightly linked, this study shows, and the curity leads women to strive to avoid getting only two providers. Since 2002, the south - current recession is changing women’s attitudes pregnant, efforts to save money may actually east part of the state lost two providers and and behaviors.The study sample consisted of undermine pregnancy prevention, creating the central region lost one. 947 women, aged 18-34, for whom pregnancy even greater economic stress. Among providers, NARAL evaluates the was a possibility and with an annual house - differences between hospitals and clinics that hold income of less than $75,000. Those Abortion Access Drops in affect abortion access for low income women. defined as “worse off” reported the greatest Massachusetts One third of clinics don’t accept MassHealth shift in attitudes and behaviors. Access to Abortion Care in Massachusetts insurance, and the average hospital may Effective birth control is a greater priority In Focus, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, charge four times the amount of a clinic for for women now that the economy is so weak; Boston, Mass., September 2009. an abortion. Providers that do accept 44 percent want to reduce or delay child - http://www.prochoicemass.org/assets/files/abor - MassHealth may take a long time doing bearing and 64 percent said that they could tionaccess2009.pdf paperwork, delaying the procedure, and even not currently afford a child. Women also Those assuming “liberal” states like Mas - pushing it the second trimester when options reported considering changing methods of sachusetts afford full abortion rights will be are more limited. birth control; 46 percent are thinking more sobered by this report, which found that about sterilization because of the economy. women’s access to abortion in the state

THE PUBLIC EYE 39 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

Gender Profiling as Anti- seriously,” Stephen Groves, a fellow at the Her - The Right Is Misinformed TerroristTactic itage Foundation, told Fox News. “It seems The Perseverance of Discrimination: Protection of Human Rights and an inescapable conclusion that their desire is Unequal Opportunity Lenders? Analyzing Fundamental Freedoms While to greatly weaken any effective counter-ter - Racial Disparities in Big Banks’ Higher- Countering Terrorism rorism measure that is made by the U.S. or Priced Lending By Martin Scheinin, Special Rapporteur to its allies.” By Andrew Jakabovics and Jeff Chapman, The the United Nations’ Human Rights Council Center for American Progress, Washington, (UNHRC),Geneva, Switzerland, August 3, 2009. LGBT Progress in a Recession? D.C., September 2009. http://www.american - http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/4aae4eea Corporate Equality Index 2010: A Report progress.org/issues/2009/08/tarp_lending.html 0.pdf Card on Gay, Bisexual and Transgender In January 2009, the media watchdog An Algerian woman is arrested and Equality in Corporate America magazine Extra! pointed out that accusations detained as a potential terrorist after report - The Human Rights Campaign Foundation, that loans to minorities were the main culprit ing sexual violence by armed Islamists. A Washington, D.C., September 14, 2009. in the subprime mortgage crisis only added transgendered person is pulled aside at an air - http://www.hrc.org/documents/HRC_ “insult to injury, since predatory lending and port, harassed, and beaten because she is “sus - Corporate_Equality_Index_2010.pdf the foreclosure crisis have already and will con - pected” of passing as a woman and thus Despite the tough economic times in tinue to wipe out billions of dollars of wealth passing as a terrorist. 2009, this year’s Human Rights Campaign in communities of color.” Since then, addi - These and others incidents, says Special Corporate Equality Index (CEI) shows that tional evidence shows that nonwhite mortgage Rapporteur Martin Scheinin in his UNHRC- a record number of businesses have progressed seekers were repeatedly the victims of poten - commissioned report, are the severely and adopted LGBT-friendly policies and ben - tially discriminatory lending practices and not underreported gendered impacts of counter- efits in the workplace. the catalysts of economic collapse that the terrorism tactics. The CEI, which ranks 590 of the top Right makes them out to be. He named gender targeting, profiling, businesses in the United States, grades the While borrowers of all ethnic backgrounds and discrimination; restrictive immigration companies on a scale based on five main cri - were often subject to more expensive loans, this and asylum controls; overly broad counter-ter - teria: nondiscrimination policies that include report finds that among the 14 major bank - rorism laws; and suppression of freedom of sexual orientation and gender expression, ing institutions examined, African Ameri - expression and household security as key domestic partner benefits, LGBT resource can and Hispanics faced rates dramatically human rights violations caused in the name groups, and public commitment to LGBT higher then their White or Asian equivalents. of fighting terrorism. efforts.The HRC also deducts points from a For example, while 17.8 percent ofWhite and “Those subject to gender-based abuse are company if “employers were found engaging 11.5 percent of Asian “borrowers were given often caught between targeting by terrorist in activities that would undermine LGBT higher-priced mortgages when borrowing groups and the State’s counter-terrorism meas - equality.” from large banks in 2006,” the report says ures that may fail to prevent, investigate, The number of businesses that received a “30.9 percent of Hispanics and a staggering prosecute or punish these acts and perpetrate perfect rating based on these criteria reached 41.5 percent of African Americans got higher- new human rights violations with impunity,” a record 305 this yea r— a whopping 20 per - priced mortgages.” It is also found that the sort he said in the report. cent increase from last yea r— and represented of underwriting criteria that one would pri - The report, however, is drawing contro - more than 9 million full-time workers. The marily expect to apply only to riskier borrowers versy on other fronts. First, phrases found in number is also a striking increase from the 13 were also used for “nearly one in seven high- the first pages of the report describing gender businesses that received perfect scores when income applicants.” as “not static” and “as a social and shifting con - the CEI started in 2002. The authors are careful to point out that, struct rather than a biological and fixed cat - Although the HRC generally lauded the given pre-existing disparities in wealth and egory,” and its subsequent advocacy for various positive findings in this year’s CEI, HRC financial security across racial lines, there is gender identities and sexual orientations have President Solmonese said there is still progress some reason to expect to find differences in caused uproar among right-wing and religious to be made. lending practices. Yet researchers found upper groups. “The forthcoming results will show that the income African Americans and Latinos faced Similarly, the report’s recommendations to majority of LGBT employee s—including the same inequities.The report challenges the cut down on abuses by repealing counter-ter - the newest generation of worker s—still fear adequacy of consumer protection and regula - rorism measures that, for instance, profile professional backlash from being open in the tory agencies, and taxpayer subsidies, through and harass pregnant women and transgen - workplace,” wrote Solmonese. “At a time TARP, to institutions with biased lending dered individuals as terrorist-bombers-in- when holding onto a job is so critical for so practices. An oversight committee must inves - disguise at airports, were attacked by many of us, we must be on guard to ensure that tigate discriminatory practices. Further repay - organizations such as the Heritage Founda - we are judged on the quality of our work and ments of TARP funds should also be tion, the Hudson Institute and Fox News. not our sexual orientation or gender identity.” suspended until an institution’s discriminatory “I would be surprised and disturbed if the practices have been evaluated and changed. U.S. took any of these recommendations

THE PUBLIC EYE 40 WINTER 2009/SPRING 2010 The Public Eye

HOLOCAUST POLITICS long time and they’ve selected peri - Eyes ods of time and say somehow this Rick Warren got some heat for describing RIGHT abortion as a holocaust when he appeared on proves there’s a manmade global Meet the Press in December. While Warren warming occurring is absolutely did not specifically refer to the Holocaust of wrong.” THE WAR AGAINST World War II, other activists are not so shy SNOOPY Of course beyond the factually question - about directly connecting Nazis and abortion able assumptions about global warming, Not only is President Obama a closet Mus - providers. A Canadian anti-abortion activist McCotter is incorrect about the time frame lim, but he also hates Charlie Brown and his gave a talk at Columbia on November 16 for the glaciers melting (it was actually friends in the “Peanuts” franchise. So said entitled, “Echoes of the Holocaust,” in which between 10,000 and 15,000 B.C.) and when Russell Wiseman, the mayor of Arlington, she claimed concentration camps are akin to people were hunting mastodons in what Tennessee, in a posting on his Facebook abortion clinics. The Christian anti-abortion became North America. McCotter may need page charging that Obama purposely timed organization, Survivors, features photos from to review some history books along with his primetime speech about the Afghan war the Nazi concentration camps on its home - research on climate change. to pre-empt the broadcast of the Peanuts page. Not only does this increasingly com - Source: Lee Fang, “Congressman ‘Caveman’ McCotter Christmas special. mon rhetoric denigrate the plight of those Cites The Experience Of Cavemen To Deny Manmade slaughtered in Nazi death camps, it makes the Global Warming.” Think Progress, December 1, 2009. Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids lives of fetuses and people equivalent, precisely http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/01/caveman-mccotter/ down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown the goal of the personhood movement. Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to Sources: Jacob M. Appel, “Auschwitz Revisited: Are Aborted Fetuses Really Like Dead Jews?”Asia News convince me that wasn’t done on pur - Network, December 6, 2009. pose. Ask the man if he believes that http://www.asianews.com.pk/2009/12/jacob-m-appel- Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he auschwitz-revisited-are-aborted-fetuses-really-like-dead- jews/ ; http://www.survivors.la/ will give you a 10 minute dissertation Eye LASHES about it....when the answer should simply be ‘yes’....” SO EASY A CAVE MAN CAN DO IT? The culture war is up More alarming than Wiseman’s conspir - Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, the “ atorial rant may be the 6272 people who told Michigan Republican who chairs his party’s for grabs. The good news The Commercial Appeal newspaper of Mem - policy committee in the House, recently is that religious conserva - phis in an online poll that “Mayor Wiseman told Fox News why he does not believe that speaks for a lot of Americans who are frus - climate change is caused by human activity. tives continue to breed trated with the President.”That’s 42 percent Already dubbed by environmentalists as a like rabbits, while secular of those who responded as of December 7, “caveman” for his stances on global warming, 2009. Forty nine percent (7405 people) McCotter drew on his critics’ imagery in his saboteurs have shut answered, “His comments are inappropriate explanation for why humans do not con - down: they’re too busy and embarrassing.” One more sign of a tribute to it. divided America. walking their dogs, Source: Matthew Woo, “Arlington mayor fires at Obama “Imagine if you were in a peninsula going to bathhouses online: Tags president as a Muslim on Facebook,” The around 1,000 BC or so or earlier and Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tennessee), December your name was Tor and you’re out and aborting their kids. 4th, 2009. http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/dec/04/ma huntin’ mastodon. And you didn’t Time, it seems, is on yor-fires-at-obama-online/?cid=Facebook ; notice that the glaciers were melting Poll results found at: http://www.commercialappeal.com/ and leaving the devastating flooding the side of the angels. polls/2009/dec/5wisemanpoll/results/ in its wake that became the Great ” –Bill Donohue, Lakes in the state of Michigan. So I President of the Catholic League think what we have to do is go back http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/ in history and look at this and real - guestvoices/2009/10/secular_saboteurs.html ize that the Earth has been here a

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