The Reformed Pastor

On Tuesday, I posted about the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and their connection to an anti-Semitic web site called Veterans Today. I specifically mentioned a blog post and Facebook entry that linked to a story at VT, and that was highlighted through using the VT logo.

Well, it’s two days later, and my friend Viola Larson went looking for the blog post, and it’s not there. The USCEIO has also deleted the link, logo, and story from their Facebook site. But Google never forgets, and so you can see the blog post here, and compare it to the way their blog looks now here (the now-removed post would be the third one down, after, ironically enough, the post “Campus group fights ADL’s silencing tactics and AIPAC’s recruiting.”) I can’t find a way to link to the Facebook status as it was before it was deleted, so you’ll have to take my word for it. In addition, the USCEIO has a Twitter feed that has links to all their blogs posts, so I assume that this item was there as well, as it also now is gone.

Near as I can tell, no one else has picked up on the USCEIO-VT connection, so unless further information surfaces I’m taking credit for shaming the USCEIO into removing these items, and doing so surreptitiously. But the fact that the post, link, and logo are gone doesn’t change the fact that an organization that counts mainline churches among its supporters is apparently getting some of its information from, and in turn lending support to, some of the vilest bigots on the Internet.

That appears to be the motto of Americans United for Separation of Church and State in this electoral season. With large Republican gains in the House and Senate yesterday, it seems we are on the verge of a new Dark Ages, and the only way to avoid that fate is Eternal Vigilance. According to today’s AU press release:

“Voters sent a strong message that they want Congress to focus on fixing the economy,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “but the election results may inflict collateral damage on the Constitution. I think the Religious Right will seize this opportunity to advance its agenda in Congress.”

Lynn said he expects the Religious Right to push for religious school vouchers, publicly funded “faith-based” hiring bias, creationism in the public schools, laws allowing electioneering by churches, “Christian nation” resolutions and other measures that undercut church-state separation.

Lynn noted that likely House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have long records of working with the Religious Right on a wide variety of social issues.

“Americans did not vote to stoke the fires of the culture war,” said Lynn, “but they may have done so inadvertently.”

I’m surprised that he didn’t mention the plans that are even now being hatched in the Vatican to institutionalize the Inquisition complete with space in the Speaker’s office, the designs Focus on the Family has to have Health and Human Services distribute chastity belts to all high school and college students, and the Family Research Council plot to pass a House rule requiring that all members be either Southern or Independent Baptists. Oh, and he forgot one other thing: the Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. That means that even if the looniest of right-wing theocrats in the House was able to convince his colleagues to commit electoral suicide by mandating that public schools teach six-day creationism or resolving that America is a Christian nation, it seems, well, unlikely that the Democrats in the Senate would go along or that the president would sign such legislation. That being the case, Rev. Lynn can quite confidently go back to finding another fund-raising strategy for AU, secure in the knowledge that The End of the World As We Know It is not around the corner.

Of course, even if it were, would that really be such a bad thing?

One reason the Republicans won on Tuesday is because many of their supporters have already given up on this world and are waiting for the next. I know, I used to be one of them.

Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series of sixteen novels (so far) represents everything that is most deranged about religion. It also is a reason and symptom of the hysteria that grips so many “conservatives” in the Republican Party.

–Francis Schaeffer son Frank Schaeffer, “explaining” the “connection” between apocalyptic dispensationalism and yesterday’s election results

Well, I think I can officially put to rest the use of terms that indicate any doubt regarding the mindset behind the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. The USCEIO is not “borderline” or “virtually” anti-Semitic. It is anti-Semitic, by virtue of the kind of filth they link to and publicize on their blog.

You can tell a lot about someone by his associates. No one has to account for every peccadillo or bizarre opinion that an acquaintance might hold, but there are some people whose thinking is so odious, public statements so repulsive, that the old expression “lie down with pigs, get up smelling like garbage” applies. That’s the case with the USCEIO, as their most recent blog post demonstrates.

Entitled “Veterans publication highlights Corrie trial and U.S. Campaign’s petition to stop Caterpillar,” the post excerpts a story entitled “Caterpillar Withholding Sale of D9 Death Bulldozers to Human Rights Violator,” found at the site Veterans Today. (The article itself was taken from Jewish Voice for Peace, a supposedly Jewish group whose anti-Zionism is a function of its extreme leftist politics.) Veterans Today doesn’t just get a link from the USCEIO, but has its logo placed above the post. As noted, the site is referred to as a “veterans publication,” with no further indication of what one might find there. So I took a look.

Among the items I found at Veterans Today:

•”The Zionist ‘Hollowhoax Continues” by staff writer Joe Cortina, in which among other things he says:

You Jews have used this ‘mantra’ of the hollowhoax as a veil to destroy the goodness of my country and immunize your horrible crimes against humanity as you transform my beloved Christian nation into a putrid morally rotted corpse. You people have made MY beloved America a playground for your pathological Jew mentality to encourage the total perversion of EVERYTHING once good and decent and wholesome and innocent.

•In “Gadahn Call to Attack Americans Comes From Israel,” staff writer Gordon Duff claims:

AL QAEDA SPOKESMAN ADAM GADAHN WORKS FOR THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT, END OF STORY

“Israeli terrorist “clones” are responsible for most hard line rhetoric, threats and, if we investigated closely, have actually recruited terrorists and directly inspired, if not planned and executed, attacks on Americans…Gadahn is part of it, so is Wikileaks”

•In “The Ugly American and His Frantic Race Over the Abyss,” Cortina writes:

Death will become a merciful escape for most of the poor peoples of the next country we decide to destroy for the greater glory of IsraHELL . If we can find no more enemies to torment – be assured that Israel will identify them for us until their last enemy is murdered. THEN there will be only one last enemy – the Christians. The Jews murdered some 20,000,000 Christians in Russia and then worldwide the Jew created Marxist genocide topped two hundred million!

•In “Duke vs. Schumer: Who Is the Threat?”, Duff offers a video presentation by white supremacist and anti-Semite David Duke that claims that Jewish Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) is a supporter of “murder” and “terrorism” because of his support for Israel. The mere act of giving a platform to the likes of Duke is telling.

•In “Israeli Control of America: A Veterans Today Reader Comments,” Duff gives over space to an extended paranoid rant that incorporates the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Khazar theory of Eastern European origins, 9/11 as a Mossad operation, Jewish control of the media, and other assorted anti-Semitic wackiness.

I think you get the point. Veterans Today is a cesspool of anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, Islamist propaganda, and other extreme craziness, all in the guise of a “veterans publication.” This is the kind of ally the USCEIO has tied itself to in its monomanical hatred of all things Israel. And don’t forget the real reason why I pay any attention to nutjobs like USCEIO: they are connected at the top with American mainline denominations. David Wildman of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries, and the Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, former moderator of the PCUSA General Assembly (among others) should be asked by people in their respective churches why they would lend their names, their denominational affiliation, their advice, and their leadership to such a vile organization.

UPDATE: United Methodists would actually do well to ask their delegates to the last General Conference why they rejected an effort to withdraw UM support from the US Campaign. According to the site Understanding United Methodist Divestment, the last GC rejected such a call by a vote of 842-24. So David Wildman’s leadership in USCEIO is not some bizarre action by a rogue activist; United Methodist participation in USCEIO has the General Conference seal of approval.

UPDATE: The Veterans Today story is also found at the top of USCEIO’s Facebook page.

Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants, who blew away the Rangers with fantastic pitching and even terrific hitting. It’s the 19th pennant for the Giants, and their 6th World Series title. It’s the first time that my childhood favorites have won it all in my lifetime, and I celebrate their achievement. Say Hey, Stretch, and the Dominican Dandy are, I’m sure, very proud of this team, as should be all their fans and the city of San Francisco.

Oh, and to top off the magic of the Giants’ season, the most valuable player of the Series is shortstop Edgar Renteria, a guy who had three stints on the disabled list this year, regained his starting job in the playoffs, and became only the fourth player to have the game-winning hit in the decisive game of a Series twice (the others are Lou Gehrig, Joe Dimaggio, and Yogi Berra, pretty good company to be in). Edgar’s a former Brave, and he was a favorite of mine in Atlanta. He’s a class guy on a class team, and I’m tickled for him and all his mates.

There are times when I can’t help but laugh at the viewing-with-alarm that is the stock-in-trade for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. In the most recent issue of their publication “Church and State,” Sandhya Bathija has a piece entitled “Critical Mass” that views-with-alarm a Roman Catholic practice of fifty years’ standing, the so-called “Red Mass.”

For those not acquainted with this particular piece of Washington arcana, the Red Mass (the color refers to the vestments worn by officiants) is held every year on the Sunday before the start of the new Supreme Court term. A variety of capitol heavyweights, from the president and vice-president to the Supremes. At the Mass, the sermon is frequently dedicated to addressing the concerns the Catholic hierarchy has on social and other issues; among those that have been addressed directly or indirectly are school vouchers, abortion, and same-sex marriage.

People like Archbishop Donald Wuerl can, of course, address these subjects any time they want, including during sermons. Attendance is hardly mandatory (indeed, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has only been once, and refuses to go as long as the preachers are so impolitic as to address issues of concern to them), and the people involved are all very well educated adults who are presumably capable of thinking for themselves. But that doesn’t stop AU from firing the big guns:

The Catholic hierarchy claims the mass is merely “a traditional religious observance asking God’s guidance on the administration of justice, and for the Nation.” But for church-state separationists, the service is an unnecessary mixing of religion and government, law and sectarian doctrine.

“The justices aren’t there to just sing songs and shake people’s hands,” said Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn. “They are invited specifically to hear how members of the church hierarchy feel about certain social issues of the day.”

Oh, the humanity! People expressing opinions in front of Supreme Court justices! People from a church expressing opinions in front of Supreme Court justices! Dogs and cats living together!

Does it not occur to the Rev. Lynn that maybe, just maybe, some or even all of the justices might go to religious services on a regular or occasional basis? And that, given that six of them are Catholics, that they might have heard whatever they hear at the Red Mass somewhere before? It may even be that–perish the thought, but it is possible–some or all of the Catholic justices have even (whisper it) studied the teachings of their church, and hence come to the Red Mass with a certain understanding of the church’s position on the subjects addressed?

As for the worry of AU that “the service is an unnecessary mixing of religion and government, law and sectarian doctrine,” one can only respond: butt out. No candidates were endorsed, so any viewing-with-alarm comes across as nothing more than the statist impulse to prevent people from being exposed to notions that AU considers unacceptable.

Bathija rehearses a lot of history, including lots of supposedly objectionable things that Catholic bishops have said, but it all seems to come down to this:

Despite the church hierarchy’s claims, the Red Mass has always been a church-state concern. When it comes to difficult legal questions, it’s hard to know how much of a role faith will play in the justices’ decisions, if at all, said AU’s Lynn.

“We worry about this kind of undue influence,” said Lynn. “They might hear something that could become a lingering factor in their decisions.”

He went on to propose that Supreme Court justices should be prohibited from watching television, listening to the radio, surfing the Internet, or allowed to read anything other than legal briefs generated by Americans United attorneys. They should not be allowed to speak to their spouses except on birthdays and anniversaries (lest the latter’s religious convictions exert undue influence over the otherwise empty-headed judges). Perhaps most importantly, they should never, ever be allowed to attend any religious services where anything about God might come up. He offered a list of suitable United Church of Christ congregations as examples of acceptable alternatives.