Let me start by saying that the “non-denominational Bethany Bible Church is enormous. It’s a large campus with several buildings, including the spacious auditorium where the Tour was held. It staggers me when I consider that Bethany Bible is but one of many similarly ostentatious mega-churches in the Valley. There are at least four I can think of right off the top of my head within the North Central Phoenix corridor. There were three within a five mile radius of my house when I lived in Ahwatukee. Gleaming monuments to tax exemption.

I arrived at 9:20 and parked my car in the huge parking lot. Hundreds of people had already arrived and I saw many late-model expensive cars and SUVs. I checked in at the registration table and entered the event. Outside the auditorium were the inevitable exhibitors and here they were the usual assortment of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, missionary groups, and hawkers of (expensive) religious training materials. I got two free DVDs as I walked around the displays. One was for the Truth Project and the other was a Dr. Del Tackett lecture.

I took a seat inside. It was a nearly sold out crowd. Let me say that I didn’t go intending to poke fun at the facilitators or the attendees. Which is probably a good thing because I certainly didn’t find anything amusing there. The whole thing filled me with disgust from the get-go. The crowd was easily 95% lily-white and affluent looking. They had that smug sanctimonious air about them that turned me off from organized religion at a very early age.

The program started with some local CAP dude laying out the agenda and telling what I suppose were jokes, since they drew peals of laughter, but I couldn’t understand them because they were in evangelical code language. Then there was an inspirational video about something or other. And then Cathi Herrod got up and said some things and then it was time for Dr. Tackett.

Del Tackett is “the author, architect and teacher for Focus on the Family’s The Truth Project” according to his website. CAP enthusiastically pushes the Truth Project in its work here in Arizona. Tackett’s speech to the Faith in Action crowd was mostly hokey platitudes and he reminded me of every scam artist motivational or snake oil pusher I’ve ever listened to. I looked around at the smug affluent white people in the audience around me, who were nodding in rapt agreement at everything he said, and thought “You have GOT to be kidding me. You guys are really falling for this charlatan?” There was a theme to Tackett’s sales pitch, though. He emphasized the need to “love thy neighbor” and stressed the importance of small groups within the larger church. This has been an important strategy for right wing theocrats. Small groups make people in them feel more connected and also more obligated and accountable. This is also how cults and pyramid schemes operate.

Tackett loaded his talk with personal anecdotes of international travel and they always ended well, with the people he encountered receiving whatever Biblical wisdom he wanted them to receive. What a phony. Oh, and “God loves freedom” and numerous references to The Enemy, as in “God loves to empower. The Enemy does the opposite.” “The Enemy wants to suck all power.” Woo, that sounds scary.

Tackett was finally done and it was Cathi Herrod’s turn to speak. That, of course, was preceded by a hagiography video about CAP and Cathi Herrod. Herrod describes herself as a “former pro-choice feminist” who came to Jesus while in law school. She is very glib and really lays on the faux folksy and maternal schtick. The Faith in Action Tour billed itself as getting Christians involved in the community. Herrod made it clear that involvement meant political. Really strong pitch to get the audience motivated to pressure politicians to enact “family values” legislation. Which means banning abortion, getting the gays back in the closet, and tax dollars going to religious schools, among other things. Herrod got big applause when she claimed that a reduction in the number of abortions in Arizona was due to CAP sponsored laws limiting access to abortion. And when she praised “crisis pregnancy centers”.

When she was done State Senator Rick Murphy and his wife Penny got up and talked about the many children they’ve adopted and fostered. Which is laudable, except for the part where they emphasized how important it is to inculcate the young charges with “Christian Values”.

Next up was the Q and A panel featuring Herrod, Dr. Tackett, and some woman named Carmen Pate. They each did some opening remarks. In hers, Herrod spoke of being concerned about religious liberty – being able to “practice religion in the public square”, as she put it. She resents the expectation that the practice of religion should be “confined to the four walls of church”. Yeah, no shit, Cathi. She also said something that really made me want to line up to ask a question (unfortunately I couldn’t stay past noon because I had other obligations). She said CAP had to “watch our rhetoric” and that “we’re involved with every issue except immigration”. Now isn’t that special? It’s not like the issue impacts, you know, families or anything, right? Yeah, don’t want to piss off your lily white Republican followers, do you Cathi?

I stayed around to a few questions but it was getting close to noon and I was going to throw up if I stayed any longer. But I did hear a couple. Okay, so I’m not a religious or spiritual person at all but I do know plenty of people who participate in organized religion or their own version of faith and they seem to derive something positive from it. Fine with me. They seem happy with their lives, are not assholes in general, and are not pushing anything on me. The audience at this CAP thing is a whole nother breed. They seem to find neither comfort nor exaltation in their beliefs. Their lives are of hard struggle and martyrdom. And what so besets these well-fed white Mercedes driving Christians? Well, one lady was terribly upset about a porn shop opening near her! Another, a school teacher, was terribly worried about her students who carried Bibles feeling awkward about it. Then there was the gentleman who faced the terrifying trauma of having to work for a company with anti-discrimination policies which make it impossible for him to pester uh “witness” to his homosexual co-workers.

Yeah, these people have such big problems, don’t they? These are your “values voters” right here. And this is the stuff they value. They make me sick.

As I reminded y’all last night: Wes Gullett has publicly courted LGBT voters in his campaign. He participated in the Equality Arizona Candidate Forum in April and said he supported civil unions, anti-bullying efforts, and safe, gender neutral restrooms for transgender residents. But Greg Stanton is a much stronger supporter of equality (including full marriage rights) so he got Equality AZ’s endorsement. Here’s something else I just learned, via my friend Kenny who emailed me the letter to the editor he sent to the Republic.

Although I won’t be voting in the Phoenix mayoral election in November, an issue has recently arisen in the race between Wes Gullett and Greg Stanton that makes me very angry, and it should anger every fair-minded voter in Phoenix, too.

The AZ Republican Party recently sent out mailer in support of Wes Gullet. In that mailer, the AZ GOP attacks Mr. Stanton for receiving a couple of endorsements, one from the ALF-CIO, and another from Equality Arizona. From the Equality Arizona ‘about’ webpage: “Equality Arizona is a statewide political advocacy organization, working at the state capitol and in communities across Arizona to advance lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality.”

Is the AZ GOP aware that Wes Gullett had a booth at Phoenix Gay Pride this year? Is the AZ GOP aware that Wes Gullett himself was manning his booth at least part of the time? (I know; I was there; I spoke with Wes Gullett.)

Does Wes Gullett believe it’s appropriate for the AZ GOP to be attacking Greg Stanton for receiving the endorsement of Equality Arizona? If “yes,” then why did Mr. Gullett have a booth a Phoenix Gay Pride?

Yet again, hypocrisy thy name is Republican!

Kenny Jones
Litchfield Park-ish

I was at Pride too but didn’t see Gullett’s booth. Yeah, I also wonder if the AZ GOP was aware Gullett’s participation in the event and if Gullett is cool with his party trolling for the homophobic bigot vote on his behalf.

Here’s the flyer, in case you haven’t seen it yet:

It would be LOL funny if not for the bigotry, from the misspelling of “endorse” to Gullett’s list of politician endorsements. Maybe there’s a voter somewhere in Phoenix who will think, “Fife Symington? Alrighty then, sign me up for Wes Gullett!”, but I doubt it.

Dear Donna

When my husband announced his run for Mayor, he made clear his commitment to stand for all Phoenicians should he be given the opportunity to lead this great city. To Greg, all means just that: ALL. It includes rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, old and young and yes, gay or straight. So, I want to share with you how upset I am by the appearance of an ad sent out by a group supporting Wes Gullett, my husband’s opponent in the run-off election.

I say shame on Wes Gullett for permitting a group that supports him to send out a mailer suggesting that Equality Arizona’s endorsement is a reason NOT to vote for Greg.

In the spirit of my brother who has been gone 20 years ago next month, and whose short life included bullying and discrimination because of his sexual orientation, I condemn the hatefulness that is reflected in this pro-Gullett mailer.

Rest assured, win or lose, our family will ALWAYS stand with Equality Arizona to help secure, protect and defend the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. I urge you to do the same. Yes, this issue is personal for me, and it needs to be personal for you, too.

With thanks for your support and sincere best wishes,

Nicole Stanton

This represents yet another flip flop for Mr. Gullett, akin to him being for or against getting federal funding for schools and First Things First depending on the audience he’s addressing. (Mitt, is that you?) Wes participated in the Equality Arizona Mayoral Forum a few months ago and sounded halfway decent on LGBT issues, coming out for civil unions, for gender neutral public restrooms, and against anti-LGBT bullying. But now he appears to be angling for the rabid reactionary Cathi Herrod vote (like he didn’t have a lock on it anyway) and bringing his gay hate on. Shame on him.

Maybe Gullett’s people think they can get away with this kind of craven, two-faced opportunism because they believe LGBT and straight people exist in mostly separate spheres and never or rarely interact with each other at all, let alone in a positive or mutually rewarding context. (This is not to say that everything is sunshine and roses. Bullying, hate crimes, and discrimination remain huge problems but attitudes are shifting in a good direction.)

This dichotomous (there’s a 10 dollar word for you) view is definitely prevalent in the sustained attack by Arizona Republicans on unions and public sector workers. Since the new Republican talking point on unions is that private sector unions are fine (yeah, right) but it’s those dastardly government unions that are the problem I’m going to assume that when Wes Gullett attacks the AFL-CIO endorsement, he is talking about AFSCME and police and fire unions, plus all government workers, union or not. These workers have been characterized as overpaid welfare queens by the likes of Sal DiCiccio and the Goldwater Institute people for months now.

Private sector workers are told these days, constantly, that they should deeply resent those fat lazy welfare mooching government teat sucking public sector workers because private sector wages and benefits have stagnated or even decreased over the past few years. Again, elite Republicans seem to have internalized the bizarre notion that there are private sector workers here and public sector workers there and never the twain shall meet.

Okay, so a Venn Diagram is, put simply, an illustration of the relationship between sets using circles. Here is how many Arizona Republican elected leaders, pundits, and “experts” seem to see the relationship between “public sector” and “private sector” workers:

Wow! That’s a lot of space between them! It’s like they don’t even know each other at all!

In the reality based world, however, these groups interact quite a bit. We live in communities alongside each other. We rely on each other, greatly, for the goods and services we need to get through our lives. Many people in the private sector, for example, send their children to these buildings called “public schools” where their children learn from these people called “teachers” who are *gasp* public employees! Sometimes something bad happens, like a car accident or a medical emergency. We then call these people called “first responders”. We tend to be glad when they arrive and not terribly concerned about their wages and pension plan when they’re prying us out of our twisted wreck of a car or saving us from a burning building. We like our first responders. A lot. We like teachers too. So a Venn Diagram reflecting a more accurate measurement of the situation would look something like this:

This might come as a huge bombshell to Sal DiCiccio, et al, but sometimes private and public sector workers become romantically entangled! Yes, it’s true. They’ve been known to date each other, marry, and even *gasp* reproduce little public-private hybrid babies! Seriously, I’ve often wondered what Sal would have me do if I, a private sector person, were married to a city cop. Am I supposed to hate my husband now? Resent his pay and benefits such that I want less money to come into our household and a poorer retirement for both of us? And if my fictitious cop husband and I had a gay child am I supposed to support Wes Gullett over Greg Stanton because not only is my kid gay but also only half-private?

At some point the politics of resentment has to stop working and we might (hopefully) be getting to that point with this “99%” movement.

Governor Jan Brewer announced the appointment of Jay Heiler to the Board on Wednesday, saying “Jay’s extensive leadership in education, business, government and strategic planning makes him uniquely qualified to serve in this role helping direct the future of higher education in Arizona.”

Uniquely qualified.

Before he was Fife Symington’s right hand man, Heiler distinguished himself in his own college career at ASU in the 80s for the obnoxious wankery that was typical of privileged conservative students of that era. Heiler made a nuisance of himself as editor of the ASU State Press in ’82 and ’83, where he used the paper to rail against, well, everyone who wasn’t a straight white rich conservative dude. Here are some highlights of Heiler’s journalistic career from a June 1992 New Times report.

On homosexuality: It is my impression that by `coming out of the closet,’ as their emergence has come to be called, homosexuals hope to make the rest of us less uncomfortable about their aberration-and despite one’s feelings about it, it is most definitely an aberration.”

On illegal immigrants: The immigrants come here to start a new life, then try to cling to their own language and customs. This tendency leads to all sorts of societal problems, ranging from interracial unrest to unexplained disappearances of dogs. The former difficulty crops up wherever aliens are to be found; the latter arose in California when the Vietnamese arrived.”

On liberals: Through their past bumblings, I have discerned that Ted Kennedy and Tip O’Neill are the two most misguided men to ever stink up the Capitol building, and that includes some stiff competition. They are paraders of socialism whose actions and utterances have left many of us with sour looks of disgusted disbelief.”

On abortion: Those with the stomach for it are forced to take note of the fact that thousands of this country’s unborn babies are slaughtered at the hands of their mothers every year.”

Fine choice for the BOR, Governor Brewer. Just what we’d expect from your administration.

Stuff like this should make us keep in mind that right wingers aren’t getting worse. They’ve always been this way.

Engaged citizens make for good governments. That’s the central idea behind the ninth annual Goldwater Institute Legislative Report Card, which takes into account 375 votes during the first session of Arizona’s fiftieth legislature. The result is a citizen-friendly tool for evaluating legislators’ votes against a simple, important standard: their impact on liberty.

Each of the 375 votes taken by the Legislature was classified into one of four categories: education, constitutional government, regulations, and tax and budget. Each bill was then further assessed on its impact, with bills receiving “high impact,” “moderate impact,” and “incremental impact” scores. The results are tallied into percentage scores with letter grades.

Letter grades, charts, and lots of wonky blah blah plus evaluation of the financing (public vs traditional) of politicians in their campaigns.

The report card also compared citizen-funded candidates and government-funded candidates. As in past years, the data shows no discernable connection between the source of campaign financing and scores received.

What I was interested in was how GI’s report card stacked up against Center for Arizona Policy’s.

Of the 21 bills CAP supported, GI included 9 in their report card, all of which they rated favorably:

SB1472
SB 1482 – Judicial selection

SB1553 – “Empowerment scholarship accounts”

SB1298 – Requires parental consent for pharmacists to administer immunizations

HB2581
SB1186 – Tax credits to School Tuition Organizations

SB1382
HB2565
SB1288 – Religious freedom

Here are some of the CAP bills that GI didn’t see fit to weigh in on:

HB2416 – Woman forced to view an ultrasound prior to abortion. Rural women have to travel several hours to meet with a doctor to get an abortion pill.

HB2384 – No public funds to universities for abortion training. No Working Poor tax credits to nonprofits that provide abortion referrals (no matter what other services they also provide).

SB1030 – Physician’s assistants can’t provide abortion medication.

SB1188 – “Requires marital status to be considered in adoption
placements and establishes a preference for children to be adopted by
a married man and woman when all other relevant factors are equal.”

SB1187 – Allows a spouse to delay divorce proceedings.

Yep, women’s and gay rights don’t figure into the Goldwater Institute’s concept of “liberty” at all. But rest assured, rich white dudes, GI has your back on firearms, fireworks, and regulatory freedom!

The effort to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples will have an unprecedented effect on religious freedom. Those who don’t believe that don’t understand the nature of the battle.

Because as odd as it may sound, the campaign to redefine marriage isn’t primarily about marriage. Rather, it’s about the desire of same-sex couples to have their relationships validated; to have them free from criticism, state-generated or otherwise. That’s the key to understanding the fight for marriage. Marriage, to those who would redefine it, is simply a means to an end, not an end in itself.

As long as believers and other people of good will say that marriage can’t be redefined and that homosexual behavior is wrong, they will be subject to persecution. And if efforts to redefine marriage through the law are successful, orthodox Christians will be subject to persecution.

This poor, sad CAPster, has no idea what he’s up against, threats-to-sanctified-marriage-wise.

Statistically, the likelihood of a straight woman marching to the altar sans virginity anywhere is way high. And her marriage is invalid and she should be executed, right, CAPsters? Deuteronomy 22:13-21 is a bitch, isn’t it?

Plug Deuteronomy 22:13-21 into every one of Dale Schowengerdt’s examples in his blog post and you’ll see how idiotic um righteous his argument is.

It’s also home to Sharon Slater.

Sharon Slater and her husband Greg reside in Gilbert, Arizona with their four children. Sharon has served as President of United Families International (UFI) for the past two years, and previously served for two years as the President of United Familes Arizona. She and her husband have traveled throughout the world attending United Nation conferences to promote family provisions in UN documents. They also have traveled throughout Africa promoting UFI’s Stay Alive, HIV/AIDS abstinence based education program. The Slaters are in the process of adopting three orphans from Mozambique, Africa. Before marrying Greg, Sharon served a mission in Costa Rica and Panama. Sharon is a graduate of BYU in the field of Family Sciences.

Who does this:

The Arizona-based Family Watch International (FWI) hosted “26 UN delegates from 23 different countries” at a policy forum in January that provided “expert presentations” and policy briefings about “how to better protect and promote the family and family values at the UN,” according to an FWI newsletter written by the organization’s president, Sharon Slater.

“The list of governments represented read like a geography lesson, as diplomats from countries around the globe-including from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Caribbean Islands-met in Gilbert in January,” trumpeted an article that has since been removed from the website of the Arizona Beehive, a publication that serves Arizona’s Mormon population.

Slater’s newsletter characterizes the presentations at the meeting as providing information on “how the UN system is being manipulated by sexual rights activists to promote the sexual agenda” and adds that “the institution of the family is being undermined by these efforts.”

And pals around with this guy:

In addition to rubbing elbows with Mrs. Museveni, Slater has ties to an equally as strident anti-condom activist in Uganda, Pastor Martin Ssempa, an Evangelical minister who is known for his exhibitionist condom burnings in the name of Christ as well as his fervent support for the Uganda bill that would impose harsher criminal penalties – including death in some cases – on Ugandans found to be gay and/or spreading HIV/AIDS (homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda). Ssempa has served as the Special Representative to the First Lady of Uganda’s Task Force on AIDS.

And in the “Who We Are” section of FWI’s website, Ssempa is listed among seven other people who either work or volunteer for the organization:

“Martin Ssempa, FWI African Coordinator (volunteer) – Internationally renowned family activist. Helped Ugandan government develop its national policy on abstinence in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Has spoken extensively on the subjects of AIDS, marriage, pornography and drug addiction. Testified before the U.S. Congress, explaining how the U.S. aid programs that rely on condom promotion and distribution have exacerbated the AIDS problem in Africa. He is helping Family Watch coordinate pro-family efforts in Africa.”

It’s remarkable that a woman in Gilbert, AZ wields such power with international bodies and I just learned about her an hour ago.

Through her efforts in HIV/AIDS prevention, Slater took an active role at the UN that she has continued to leverage more recently. Last year, for instance, she worked with delegations from Iran, Syrian, Nigeria, Qatar and Saint Lucia to cosponsor a meeting at one of the main convention halls on “Recognizing the Critical Role of Mothers in Society.”

The meeting, which sounds rather innocuous, commenced during a two-hour break in the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) – the UN’s principal global policy-making body dedicated to promoting gender equality and the advancement of women. Slater used the opportunity to relay to CSW participants her view of how women’s rights have contributed to the disintegration of the family and indeed ravaged the foundations of society altogether.

She was introduced with distinction by the Syrian ambassador, who said Slater had been “very active in the deliberations of our meetings.”

I’m not surprised that a conservative woman asserts that women’s rights are a threat to the foundations of society while enjoying the trappings of a high powered career for herself. What knocks me out about this is that she lives in Gilbert. And I just learned about her an hour ago.

The Colorado Independent reports that the Family Policy Council, the political arm of evangelical behemoth Focus on the Family, has launched a multi-state effort to attack LGBT and reproductive rights in the 2012 campaign season. Naturally GOP politicians are pleased as punch at this since it’s electoral catnip for them.

The campaign, which largely targets states where Republicans won control of legislatures or governorships, has garnered the support of Republican political superstars such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.), Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Jon Kyl (Ariz.), and Rep. Trent Franks (Ariz.). The groups intend to pass anti-gay marriage amendments, curtail abortion rights and, in at least one case, ban “transgender bathrooms.”

The article links Center for Arizona Policy’s strategic PDF, which is apparently practically identical to the promotional materials used by the other states participating in this mysteriously funded endeavor. Which is totally a coinky dink having nothing to do with Focus on the Family.

Requests for information from many of the policy councils were denied, and Focus on the Family told The American Independent that they have no involvement, declining to offer information on any organization that might back the plan.

Focus on the Family says that while the groups are “fully associated” with FoF, they “are independent entities with no corporate or financial relationship to each other or to Focus on the Family.”

Right-o.

One of the “tea party” phrases that put the teeth of the left on edge is: “We have to take our country back.” According to liberals, this phrase is disrespectful to President Barack Obama, implying that he is somehow unpatriotic or illegitimate.

However, I first heard the phrase from Hillary Clinton when she was running for president.

She was talking about the need to “take our country back” from George W. Bush.

It was sort of a signature phrase for her. Clinton used it in a key speech to the Democratic National Committee and even in her speech conceding the race and offering her support to Obama.

I don’t recall any liberal objections that Clinton’s using that phrase was uncivil or beyond the pale.

Liberals instinctively regard the phrase as accurate as applied to Bush and offensive when applied to Obama. Conservatives suffer from the same lack of self-awareness.

Which is one of innumerable reasons I hold out no hope for this civil-discourse thing.

One of innumerable reasons I don’t hold out hope for the Fourth Estate in Arizona is the unwillingness of columnists like Bob Robb to unequivocally denounce the grotesque dishonesty and cruelty of Russell Pearce et al. 41 Republican Arizona State Legislators signed onto this year’s Birther Bill. Bob Robb, you want to tell me what Blue state put forth a bill advancing an equivalent left wing theory?

While you’re chewing on that, Bob, take a gander at how the hero of the Right Wing handled AIDS

Making fun of AIDS victims. Not too civilized, were they, Bob?