PORN VALLEY—Over the course of the average week, at least one AVN editor receives about 100 emails from right-wing and/or religious organizations, usually promoting some aspect of their brand of Christianity, decrying Obama and the Democrats, calling for the end of pornography, or whatever other whackadoodle notion they think they can sell to the party/church faithful has gotten into their heads this week. And considering how much these notions, if they catch the attention of the wrong politician or bureaucrat, can affect the course of the adult business, AVN feels that it is its duty to keep readers abreast of what these nutbars have been claiming and/or planning over the previous week so adult producers and fan can adjust their business models and/or finances to account for the insanity. That's how Weekly Right-Wing/Religious Wrap-Up was born.
But first...
A Game
It's called "Right-Wing Radio Roulette," and it's usually played in the car. The rules are pretty simple: Just tune your radio to one of the many right-wing talkers who infest the airwaves (92% of those airwaves at last count) and listen to Limbaugh or Hannity or Boortz or Medved or Levin or Hewitt or Praeger or any other (usually religious) conservative babble on about whatever topic they've decided to be riled up about today, and then, when you get to the point that you're yelling at your radio speaker, "Moron!" or "You asshole!" or even just "Fuck you!", push one of your other preset buttons and go on to the next winger idiot, listen and repeat.
Topic A
One consistent theme throughout this week's emails and right-wing/religious (RWR) site surfing has been that "liberals" can't get enough of bashing Christianity. For instance, Focus on the Family's 'CitizenLink' newsletter last Friday featured an interview with conservative columnist S.E. Cupp, a purported atheist, wherein she claimed that, "Hollywood started treating Christianity like it was some kind of social disease decades ago. These days, it's practically company policy in Hollywood to mock Christianity as hopelessly uncool and unsophisticated. The liberal media has, in the past 10 years or so, joined in the action."
Asked why she thinks mainstream media feel the need to target "Christian America," she replied, "Two reasons: One, it's a way of getting at conservatism. If they can effectively paint Christians as dangerous fanatics, it's just a skip away from painting conservatives as dangerous fanatics. They conflate politics and religion here because, well, it works. Two, the moral relativism of liberalism is threatened by the fixed value system of Christianity, which holds people accountable for their actions. Liberalism can dismiss a lot of bad behavior, and that's just the way they like it. Liberals in the media are deeply mistrusting of, and uncomfortable with, judgmental morality... The liberal media calls Christians terrorists, extremists, simpletons and much, much worse. They treat them like they are pariahs. Well, I'd like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and Lisa Miller and Glenn Greenwald and the rest of them to feel like pariahs. Instead, they're protected within a tiny, liberal, secular bubble, and they have no idea that the majority of the country shudders in disgust when they attack the values upon which America was founded. I think it's time Christian America woke from their slumber and saw just how bad it's gotten."
Yeah, she's an atheist! And in case she hadn't noticed, it's not atheists who are bombing abortion clinics and killing their doctors—or printing bible verses on the scopes of Army rifles, or describing the Iraq war as a "crusade," or claiming, as did Lt. Gen. William Boykin of one Muslim fugitive, "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
The Faithful are also getting worked up about one of Comedy Central's potential new shows that's currently "in development": "JC." According to James Hibberd's Live Feed blog, the half-hour animated show will be "about Christ wanting to escape the shadow of his 'powerful but apathetic father' and live a regular life in New York City. In the show, God is preoccupied with playing video games while Christ, 'the ultimate fish out of water,' tries to adjust to life in the big city."
This of course led the American Family Association to mount a poll asking, "Why do you think secular television regularly denigrates and demeans Christianity?" The only available responses are, "Industry decision-makers have determined that Christians are easy targets"; "TV writers and producers believe their audience considers Christian principles to be out-of-date"; and "It is safer than mocking Islam"—that last a reference to the network's censorship of any image of Mohammed (even totally encased in a bear suit) portrayed on "South Park."
WBWJR—What Boy Would Jesus Rent?
Another fun scenario broke in the Miami New Times on Thursday, where it was revealed that Dr. George Alan Rekers, a prominent anti-gay activist and one of the founders of the RWR Family Research Council (FRC), had hired a man from the Rentboy.com website to accompany him on a trip to London and Spain to help with "lifting luggage"—a phrase that will probably replace Larry Craig's "foot tapping in the men's room" as a euphemism for gay sex.
According to Rekers, one reason he hired the guy, who describes himself on the Rentboy website as, "Body Hair: Smooth; Build: Lean/Swimmer; Eye Color: Blue; Hair Color: Blonde; Foreskin: Uncut; Cock Size: Large; Safe Sex: Always Safe; Sexual Position: Versatile; Sexual Orientation: Bisexual," was to "save" him from his sinful way of life.
"Like John the Baptist and Jesus, I have a loving Christian ministry to homosexuals and prostitutes in which I share the Good News of Jesus Christ with them (see I Corinthians 6:8-11)," Rekers wrote to the JoeMyGod blog. "Contrary to false gossip, innuendo, and slander about me, I do not in any way 'hate' homosexuals, but I seek to lovingly share two types of messages to them, as I did with the young man called “Lucien” in the news story." The messages? No one has to be gay, and it's important to "establish a relationship with God for all eternity by trusting in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, including homosexual sins."
The escort, on the other hand, has now told New Times that "the Baptist minister is a homosexual who paid him to provide body rubs once a day in the nude, during their ten-day vacation in Europe."
"Rekers allegedly named his favorite maneuver the 'long stroke'—a complicated caress 'across his penis, thigh... and his anus over the butt cheeks,' as the escort puts it. 'Rekers liked to be rubbed down there,' he says."
On the other hand, FRC head Tony Perkins was quick to assure his email readership that, "I had never heard of Dr. Rekers, so I asked our corporate attorney to review past documents. We did verify that Dr. Rekers was a member of the original Family Research Council Board prior to its merger with Focus on the Family in 1987. FRC has had no contact with Dr. Rekers or knowledge of his activities in over a decade, so I can't speak to what he may or may not have done. However, I can say that while it's extremely disappointing when any Christian leader engages in the very activities that they 'preach' against, it's not surprising. The Scriptures clearly teach the fallen nature of all people. We each have a choice to act upon that nature or accept the forgiveness offered by grace through faith in Jesus Christ."
Apparently there are a lot of Catholic priests who haven't gotten that "teaching" either.
Salvation Through Prayer
In case you hadn't heard, there's a ginormous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that's threatening to ruin both the sea floor and coastlines from Texas to Florida, whith one of the greatest economic impacts to be on those who fish for shrimp and other shellfish in the area.
"A lot of these folks have been shrimping all their lives, and now they're going to have to do something else," said Pastor Steve McNeal of the First Baptist Mission in Venica, La. "All they've ever wanted to do is shrimp, so there's an emotional trauma, I guess, as well as some folks just not knowing what's going to happen tomorrow or next week."
"We were able to pray with them, and that eased their distress for a while," McNeal said. "It's [the oil spill clean-up] probably going to be going on for months and perhaps even years. So we're going to try to finish the church building as quickly as possible so we'll have a better facility with which to do whatever it is that God is going to lead us to do. We don't know exactly yet what opportunities are going to open to us other than prayer."
All that prayer hasn't caused God to intervene to help clean up the spilled oil (nor to prevent the disaster in the first place) but McNeal and his followers apparently have scored a couple of points with the Almighty.
"I was able to basically tell them that we've been praying and since we've been praying things have changed. One day that we prayed was right after they found out there was not going to be shrimping anymore, so we prayed and the next day they announced that they were going to use the shrimpers as part of the cleanup and pay them a pretty good amount to use their boats and their crews to go out and clean up," McNeal said. "All of that happened just right after we prayed, and I was able to share with the reporters that prayer works."
All Ads Aren't Created Equal
The New York Police Department arrested close to 50,000 people for marijuana possession in 2009, at a cost of nearly $100 million—even though possession of marijuana has been decriminalized in New York State since 1977.
A lot of people don't know those facts—and they'll have even less chance to find out since a billboard created by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) to memorialize those statistics was rejected by TITAN 360, the world’s largest transit advertising company.
The rejected ad states, "Nearly half of all New Yorkers have tried marijuana—including Mayor Bloomberg. We can't arrest them all but Bloomberg is trying," then lists the statistics at the bottom.
But late last week, TITAN rejected the billboard. In an email exchange with DPA, the TITAN representative said the landlord refused the ad because of "political circumstances from the Mayor's office."
"What political circumstances?" a DPA press release asked. "Did the landlord have ties with the Mayor? Was the landlord worried about upsetting the Mayor? We inquired with TITAN—but got no answers."
So DPA issued a press release recounting its dealings with TITAN.
"Within hours, an aide from Mayor Bloomberg's office called," DPA reported. "He angrily denounced our account of TITAN's rejection, and demanded we change our press release and send him a copy of the email exchange between myself and the TITAN representative. We did neither. Later that day, TITAN's general counsel suddenly called with a new explanation. He explained the company had an internal policy which prohibits 'attack' ads and ads that will create controversy. He said our ad, as is, cannot be placed by TITAN since it names Mayor Bloomberg. It was not the landlord's political concerns that caused the rejection, he said, but rather TITAN's own internal policy."
What a difference a couple of days make!
National Day of First Amendment Violation
The RWR is still getting exercised about Judge Barbara B. Crabb's decision last month that the establishment of a "National Day of Prayer," which took place this year on May 6, was an unconstitutional act on Congress' part, since it has no secular purpose and "establishes" a federal promotion of a religious activity.
But it only took about three weeks after Judge Crabb's opinion was released for the ultimate religious paranoia to set in.
"I think its [sic] coming to this country where we [will] have the freedom to preach inside a church wall, but we will lose the freedom to do it outside," predicted Rev. Franklin Graham, son of Rev. Billy, who was one of the prime movers in getting Congress to establish a National Day of Prayer (NDOP) in the first place. "That day will probably come – maybe in my lifetime... [In the United States] we see everyday our rights being eroded. Just a little at a time, but its happening. Everyday. So let's preach while we can. Let's stand up and holler 'Jesus Christ! King of Kings, Lord of Lords!' to the top of our voice... The secularists are going to get ticked off, the news media's going to hate it. I don't know, maybe the people in the White House are going to be mad. But you know what, I don't care."
"I am convinced that there are people in high places, people with a great deal of authority and influence, who want to eliminate every vestige of religion—especially Christian religion, or evangelical religion—from the public square," echoed Dr. James Dobson, the recently retired founder of Focus on the Family. "They want to expunge it. They want to get rid of it. They want to take away our right to worship and to have a prayer service in a government building. That's not unconstitutional!"
Actually, of course, it is—but maybe Franklin's just a bit testy because he was "disinvited" by the Army to speak at its NDOP ceremony at the Pentagon, perhaps in part because in 2001, he called Islam "a very wicked and evil religion," adding later, "True Islam cannot be practiced in this country. You can't beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they've committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries."
Apocalypse Soon
An email solicitation for former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich's new book claims, "America As We Know It Will Cease To Exist!"
In Gingrich's "blockbuster" new book, "To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine," the aging partyarch says that the current political system is "a corrupt bureaucracy which uses manipulation, bribery, and dishonesty to steamroll the will of the people and destroy America's core values."
"The secular socialist machine represents as grave a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did," Gingrich claims. "It is actively working to demolish our core values, beliefs, and attitudes and replace them with their own."
In other news, radio talker (and professional Jew) Dennis Prager claimed this week that, "there is at least a 50-50 chance that if you read or hear a public personality use Nazi imagery to describe conservatives, the person is a Jew. Specifically, a Jew on the Left," and added later, "however many or few tea party banners compare President Obama to Hitler (and such comparisons are as reprehensible as they are self-defeating), conservative public figures—such as politicians and prominent columnists—almost never compare liberals to Nazis, while public figures on the Left often compare conservatives to Nazis."
So Newt Gingrich is a left-wing Jew? Who knew?
Getting Bent Out of Shape? Just Get Bent!
RedState's Erick Erickson, one of the newest contributors to CNN's nightly "John King, USA" program, has got the 411 on mainstream media's "liberal bias."
Seems that in the wake of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signing her state's anti-immigration bill, SB 1070, "An employee opened an envelope addressed to Governor Jan Brewer which contained a 'powdery white substance'." Of course, like most powdery white substances sent through the mails these days, this powder was harmless, but for Erickson, it signaled a greater danger—and not just from white powder!
"How long after the Capitol steps alleged spit incident was it before talking heads were running with the Democrat and Shepard Smith talking point that tea partiers were becoming violent?" Erickson asked. "How many times in the last year, from the town halls through today, has MSNBC had panels and pundits discussing the 'violent rhetoric' and increasing danger from the right? Can you imagine if Governor Brewer had declared a Arizona a sanctuary state and then received white powder in the mail? The uproar? The outrage? The utter ALARM!??!"
Yeah, just another example of rampant liberal hypocrisy...
How To Write A Voters Guide, Republican Style
Just in time for the primary elections, the Family Policy Council of West Virginia has released its online Voter Guide, but lest you think that an organization with "family" and "policy" and "council" in its name might be partisan, let them explain how they obtained the material they're using in the guide:
"We sent a questionnaire to the address given to the Secretary of State for every candidate for the United States House of Representatives, the West Virginia State Senate, and the West Virginia House of Delegates," the Council's website states. "While we encouraged each candidate to respond, we were disappointed that many candidates chose not to tell you about themselves by answering these eight critical questions."
We weren't able to get a look at the eight questions (though it probably wouldn't be too tough to guess what they are) because in order to see the Guide, you have to enter a West Virginia address in the space provided on the website.
So, you might ask, how were they able to include those recalcitrant candidates in the guide?
"As we told the candidates in our questionnaire, if they chose to enter 'no position' or simply chose not to respond, as part of our educational efforts, we would insert the relevant portion of the national party platform to which they are aligned in lieu of their answer. Though party platforms help us learn more about a candidate, they may or may not be reflective of how a candidate would actually answer those questions." [Emphasis added]
Yeah, we trust the Family Policy Council of West Virginia to attribute only the most relevant, factual and widely-held party beliefs to the (Democratic) candidates running for office in their state.
And in other news, Hell has frozen over.
Nun News
"Three Catholic women's communities in Washington state are being investigated by the Vatican," wrote Carolyn Adolph of KUOW 94.9 FM. "They were chosen for review as part of an extensive investigation into American nuns. The Vatican says it's following up on complaints of feminism and activism... The Vatican's 20–page questionnaire asks about the extent of communities' obedience to the Church and their handling of nuns who dissent... It's not clear why the local orders are being singled out. The Renton Sisters of Providence run a women's transition house. The Tacoma Dominicans call themselves risk takers. They work to end human trafficking."
Yeah, can't have nuns worrying about human trafficking or battered women. Better leave that stuff to the pedophile priests...
Eating Jim Crow
In a column this week on Townhall.com, radio talker Michael Medved worried about the GOP's "lack of support from any significant segment of the nonwhite population."
"The math here is brutal and eye-opening," Medved wrote. "If Obama in 2012 wins the same percentage of the combined black, Asian and Hispanic vote that he won in 2008 (82 percent), then in order to beat him the GOP candidate would need to win an unimaginable 65 percent of all white voters—whose numbers include such stalwart Democratic constituencies as gays, atheists, Jews and union members... Winning an electoral majority doesn't require capturing, or even splitting, every ethnic group, but no candidate can prevail if he (or she) gets overwhelmed among all nonwhite voters. In this context, the GOP doesn't need to win with each of the 33 black Republicans in current congressional contests, or even with most of them. But if any of them carry their districts in November, it will help change the GOP image as a whites-only political organization and rejuvenate the once-vibrant party of Lincoln and Reagan that is still struggling against marginalization and irrelevance."
Wow! Maybe those black Republican candidates can get Michael Steele to campaign for them. That should ensure their victory!
Nearer My God To Thee—If You've Got A Quarter
According to the Chicago Tribune, some pastors in the windy city are getting upset that it may cost parishioners a couple of bucks to drive to church on Sunday.
"[S]nce the city privatized its parking meters last year, more churchgoers have encountered unanswered prayers for parking," wrote the Tribune's Manya A. Brachear. "Pricey meters and restricted curbside parking now surround historic houses of worship in the Loop, forcing the faithful to pay to pray or get free parking by volunteering for soup kitchens, tutoring or other ministries. Some pastors are pushing the city to consider what churches contribute to city life and ease parking restrictions for congregants, especially on Sunday mornings when commercial and government traffic is light."
"We're not asking for special privileges," said the Rev. Philip Blackwell, pastor of First United Methodist Church at Chicago Temple.
(Yeah, they are.)
"I think it's interfering with my religious activity," said the Rev. Webb Evans, 96, who keeps an office at Israel Methodist Community Church. "We should have the freedom to go to church without having to pay a meter five or six feet in front of the door."
(Why not? Everyone else does.)
"At a time when we have a culture that is seemingly going backward in its civility, in its respect, in its conforming to social norms, if anything we need these churches as our partner," said Alderperson Freddrenna Lyle.
(Gee; maybe paying for your parking like every other citizen in the city might be a good way of "conforming to social norms" instead of asking for special privileges just because, as Lt. Gen. Boykin noted, your God can beat all the other gods.)
The Past As Prologue
Dan Coats has just won the Republican primary in Indiana and might retake his former seat in the U.S. Senate.
Now, where have we heard that name before?
"The senator who vowed to protect children from indecent material on the Net has spawned a son of the now-defunct Communications Decency Act," wrote CNET News' Courtney Macavinta in 1997. "In June, the Supreme Court ruled that a controversial part of the Dan Coats CDA unconstitutionally censored protected speech because it prohibited transmitting or displaying indecent material to minors via the Net. The high court said the law was too broad and could have criminalized simply posting Web pages about safe sex, art, or medical issues, for example."
So what did Coats do in response to the Supreme Court's ruling? He introduced "CDA II"—but AVN readers probably know it better as the Child Online Protection Act: COPA.
This Week's Coulter Quote
"[I]t would be a little easier for the rest of us not to live in fear if the president's entire national security strategy didn't depend on average citizens happening to notice a smoldering SUV in Times Square or smoke coming from a fellow airline passenger's crotch," the dippy blonde wrote in her weekly column for Human Events. "But after the car bomber and the diaper bomber, it has become increasingly clear that Obama's only national defense strategy is: Let's hope their bombs don't work!"
