Oklahoma Gets Official State Gospel Song

On Tuesday, Oklahoma's House voted unanimously to make Swing Low, Sweet Chariot the official state gospel song. No other state has an official religious song.

When state Representative Jabar Shumate of Tulsa (left), the Oklahoma bill's House sponsor, was asked by a colleague to give a rendering of the song on the House floor on Monday, he declined, saying his pastor told him to always sing solo -- "so low nobody can hear." Even without a performance, no one voted against the song. "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" was written in 1862, when Oklahoma was still Indian Territory, by a Choctaw Freedman named Wallis Wallis. It's said the Red River made Wallis think of the Jordan River, and the song was loosely based on a Bible passage that describes the Prophet Elijah being taken to heaven in a chariot. "It should be a source of pride to all Oklahomans that this meaningful song was written in our state," Shumate said.

Gov. Mary Fallin signed the bill into law last night.

Creation Institute: Teaching Evolution Leads To Homosexual Indoctrination

"From the patriarchal days of Sodom and Gomorrah to the Law of Moses to the New Testament, God’s Word consistently declares that homosexuality is sin and warns of the condemnation it brings to the individuals who practice it and to societies that promote it. Indeed, the rampant teaching of evolution in our schools that is effectively undermining belief in God and absolute moral standards is not only creating an atmosphere of 'tolerance' for homosexuality, but for just about anything.

"As the truism goes, 'Without God, everything is permissible.' So, in reality, there’s nothing to prevent the same rationale being used today to justify homosexuality and homosexual marriage from being used tomorrow to sanction polygamy or pedophilia or, as one very honest evolutionist wrote a while back (a piece that quickly disappeared from public view), if evolution is true, then rape is a very valid and/or efficient way for a man to spread his genes. After all, why not? It’s the survival of the fittest. Of course, in a purely evolutionary world, homosexuals would naturally be bred out of existence, as well. But you won’t hear that from pro-evolution advocates." - Tom DeRosa, executive director of the Creation Studies Institute.

Matt Barber On JMG/GLAAD

"So GLADD, a self-described anti-defamation group, gives an award to one of the most vicious, vile and vulgar anti-Christian bigots on the planet and expects to be taken seriously? Hey, while we’re at it why not give Muammar Gaddafi the ‘Humanitarian of the Year’ award. Or how about a Nobel Peace Prize for Barack Oba… Oh, wait" - Liberty Counsel douchebag Matt Barber, as quoted by Porno Pete, who's apparently polling other hate groups about my GLAAD award.

TOTALLY FUCKING RELATED: Today the FBI revealed that the Liberty Counsel is being investigated for conspiracy to commit kidnapping in the case of Isabella Jenkins-Miller, an action I first began to call for on this blog more than 18 months ago.

Iowa GOP Files Impeachment Charges Against Pro-Gay State Supreme Court

Thanks to a truckload of money funneled to them by Newt Gingrich, last year hate groups were able to unseat three of Iowa's seven state Supreme Court justices over their backing of same-sex marriage. Yesterday GOP lawmakers in the state House filed impeachment charges against the four remaining justices. Here's an excerpt of the charges against Justice David Wiggins:

By his action in the Varnum case, Justice Wiggins has created a constitutional imbalance and confusion within the State of Iowa as to the proper constitutional function of each department, thus undermining the integrity of the tripartite separation of powers among the departments and creating social disorder and unrest. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE, That the conduct of Supreme Court Justice David S. Wiggins, in committing malfeasance in office, warrants impeachment, trial by the Senate, and removal and disqualification from any office of honor, trust, or profit under the state pursuant to the procedures set out in Iowa Code 3 2 chapter 68.

The latest move has the backing of Family Leader, Iowa's most prominent anti-gay Christianist group.

FLORIDA: Anti-Gay Group Launches MTV Boycott Over Transgender Character

The Florida Family Association has launched an advertiser boycott against MTV because the network's Degrassi series positively portrays a young transgender man. Degrassi airs on MTV's Teen Nick channel. FFA chairman David Caton (left) writes in a letter to the show's advertisers:

It is very concerning that your company would knowingly advertise during a television show that condones and promotes transgender lifestyles to an audience that is almost exclusively watched by young teens and children. You would think by the number of episodes that MTV devotes to including the relationship between a female to male transgender high school student and a bi-sexual lesbian student that such relationships are a common occurrence in America’s high schools. The odds of this bizarre relationship occurring in high schools are extremely rare. Yet, MTV feeds this salacious and irresponsible propaganda to an audience made up of almost exclusively young teens and children as if it were common place. MTV airs a free promo for PFLAG on DeGrassi which directs kids to an organization that will encourage our youth to embrace a different sexual identity that may stay with them for life. Will your company continue to advertise on this irresponsible show?

RELATED: World Net Daily publicized the boycott today in a lengthy article that repeats Peter LaBarbera's unfounded charges about GLSEN's Facebook page.

Dominionist Nutjob David Barton: The Bible Is Totally Against Net Neutrality

David Barton, the Seven Mountains whackjob who believes that America should be a Christianist theocracy, says that the Bible outlaws net neutrality. In fact, fairness isn't a concept that Christians should embrace at all.

This is the Fairness Doctrine applied to the Internet, and I’ll go back to what I believed for a long time is: fair is a word no Christian should ever use in their vocabulary. Fair has nothing to do with anything. What you want is justice, you don’t want fairness. Fairness is subjective, what I think is fair, what you think, what happened to Jesus wasn’t fair. That’s right, but we needed justice so God did that for us. This is really, I’m going to use the word wicked stuff, and I don’t use that word very often, but this is wicked stuff.

RELATED: Alarmed by Barton's meteoric popularity among the Tea Party and religious right, Right Wing Watch today issued an exhaustive expose on the man Newt Gingrich Mike Huckabee says Americans should be "forced to listen to at gunpoint." An excerpt:

Barton has been profitably peddling a distorted “Christian nation” version of American history to conservative religious audiences for the past two decades. His books and videos denouncing church-state separation have been repeatedly debunked by respected historians, but that hasn’t kept Barton from becoming a folk hero for many in the Religious Right. His eagerness to help elect Republicans has won him gratitude and support from national as well as state and local GOP leaders. Former senator Sam Brownback, now the governor of Kansas, has said that Barton’s research “provides the philosophical underpinning for a lot of the Republican effort in the country today – bringing God back into the public square.” Indeed, Time Magazine named him one of the nation’s 25 most influential evangelical Christians in 2005.

Bishop Harry Jackson: Gay Marriage Is A Satanic Plot To Destroy Our Seed

Maryland-based carpetbagger Bishop Harry Jackson appeared on the radio show of Minnesota hate preacher Bradlee Dean to declare that gay marriage is part of Satan's plot to "destroy our seed." Whatever that means. Bradlee Dean, who has appeared at fundraisers for Rep. Michele "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann, routinely calls for the death penalty for homosexuality. We can now presume that Jackson feels the same way.

(Via - Right Wing Watch)

Newt Gingrich: Schools Should Be Forced To Teach That We Are A Christian Nation

"I challenge that ACLU to explain why children shouldn't be taught what the Founding Fathers meant when they said 'We are endowed by our Creator.'" According to Gingrich, "every state legislature should adopt a law" ordering such lessons.

Frothy Mix To Glenn Beck: States Should Be Allowed To Criminalize Gay Sex

Former Sen. Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum went on Glenn Beck's radio show yesterday to renew his call to criminalize gay sex. Santorum was responding to former Sen. Alan Simpson's epic denouncement of homophobic Republicans.

There were no “cruel, cruel” remarks. All I can ponder is that Alan Simpson is talking about a comment that I made, which I paraphrased, almost word for word, but paraphrased a Supreme Court justice in a case called Lawrence v. Texas, before that case came out, which had to do with, as you know, a Supreme Court case on the issue of sodomy, and I said that if you have -- if the Supreme Court changes the legal standard to say that sexual -- consensual sexual activity is now a constitutional right, then we open up the gates for all sorts of consensual activity. It’s not homophobic. It’s a legal argument, and it’s a correct legal argument. In fact, that’s exactly what’s happening. We went from Lawrence v. Texas to now a constitutional right to same-sex marriage and they’re going into a constitutional right to polyamorous relationships. This is the slippery slope that we’re heading down, and I stand by it.

Click over to Equality Matters for an audio file.

FLORIDA: State Senate Committee Repeals Separation Of Church And State

Yesterday Florida's GOP-dominated state Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that effectively eliminates the separation of church and state.

SJR 1218, which was sponsored by Sen. Thad Altman (R-Melbourne) and endorsed by the entire Republican caucus, would delete a constitutional provision that bars Florida from spending public revenues on sectarian religious organizations. Supporters of the bill claim that prohibiting government from funding religious groups discriminates against religious groups. [snip] There are many reasons why Republicans want to repeal the “no aid” provision of Florida’s constitution, known as the Blaine Amendment. Their reasons include their desire to include sectarian religious education in our public schools and their desire to fund specific favored religious organizations while defunding public organizations that benefit all Floridians.

(Tipped by JMG reader Nicholas)

Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber: Muslims And Liberals Are God's Common Enemies

PhoboQuotable - Randy Thomasson

"School administrators have frequently denied sponsoring, participating in, or allowing the 'Day of Silence,' but are nonetheless allowing students to be silent without consequences. Even some teachers will 'go silent,' writing pro-homosexuality messages on boards, and setting up classroom displays to teach impressionable children that aggressive homosexual activists are 'victims,' that more laws promoting their agenda are needed, when there are already numerous laws prohibiting physical harassment of students; and that homosexuality is natural and healthy, when it is actually unnatural and unhealthy.

"Parents who are hearing about 'Day of Silence' are appalled this immoral takeover is happening. They don't want their children subjected to in-your-face sexual indoctrination, so they're keeping their kids home. Because school districts are allowing this brainwashing during the entire school day, morally-sensitive parents are counter-protesting by removing both their child and the child's ADA funding on Friday." - Randy Thomasson of Save California, in a press release that includes links to NARTH.

Porno Pete: GLSEN's Day Of Silence Facebook Page "Linked" To Porn Site

In one of his most laughable accusations yet (and that's saying something), Porno Pete LaBarbara tonight breathlessly reports that photos advertising gay hook-up sites were posted to the Facebook page for GLSEN's Day Of Silence. Where children would see them.

A Facebook page affiliated with the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) — to support homosexual student clubs and GLSEN’s upcoming activist “Day of Silence” in schools nationwide (Friday, April 15) — was linked for several weeks to a pornographic “gay” hook-up website containing full-frontal nudity and personal ads expressing interest in dangerous homosexual practices including anal sodomy, “rimming” and various sadistic sex fetishes popular in the homosexual male subculture. The GLSEN ”Gay-Straight Alliances” Facebook page was also linked to a “Gay Trip Thailand” Facebook page with shirtless Thai males — luring men to that notorious sex-tourism destination — as well as a movie about two male lovers that is sponsored by a leading “gay” pornographic video distributor. When the salacious links were exposed April 11 by Mission America, a pro-family group, they were quickly removed from the GLSEN Facebook page.

LaBarbera's post goes on for another zillion words with many long-disproven accusations against GLSEN.

Of course, as anybody who's ever been on Facebook knows, any one of the 40,000 people who "liked" that GLSEN page could have uploaded those photos. Why, it could have even been repulsive anti-gay douchebags like, ta-DAH, Peter LaBarbera. Like the page, upload the photos, lurk for a bit hoping they aren't noticed, take a screenshot...and WHEE! Instant scandal!

Can you imagine the scandal if say, hundreds of salacious photos of ripped male hotties were to be mysteriously uploaded to Porno Pete's own completely ignored public Facebook page? Why, that would be TOTAL PROOF that he's a closet case! Oh, wait.

WND Busted In Photoshop Lie

Today World Net Daily published a lengthy column claiming that Barack Obama had been photoshopped into the top photo with his white grandparents. Because he couldn't have been with them in New York City and in Kenya/Indonesia/Pakistan at the same time. However Media Matters points out that in fact it's WND's image that is photoshopped, as evidenced by the fact that they didn't even take out the president's leg. Hilarious. Sad and repulsive, but hilarious.

(Via - Andrew Sullivan)

Cindy Jacobs: God Is Sending Natural Disasters Because Of The Repeal Of DADT

Not only did God kill all those birds in Arkansas because of the repeal of DADT, the earthquake in Japan and that tsunami? Totally because of gay soldiers in the U.S.

The Rise Of Seven Mountains Dominionism

Probably the scariest development in the Christianist movement in recent years is the advent of "Seven Mountains" dominionism. Right Wing Watch explains:

Seven Mountains dominionism seeks to place Christians in control over the seven forces that shape and control our culture: (1) Business; (2) Government; (3) Media; (4) Arts and Entertainment; (5) Education; (6) Family; and (7) Religion. The reason for this, as Lance Wallnau, the leading advocate for Seven Mountains theology, explained is that Jesus "doesn't come back until He's accomplished the dominion of nations." And that way "dominion of nations" is accomplished is by having Christians gain control of these "seven mountains" in order to install a "virtual theocracy" overseen by "true apostles" who will fight Satan and his Antichrist agenda.

One of the most popular advocates of Seven Mountains is historical revisionist David Barton, about whose sermons Mike Huckabee said last week: "I almost wish that there would be like a simultaneous telecast and all Americans would be forced, forced — at gun point no less — to listen to every David Barton message. And I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen."

In 1952 Congress designated the first Thursday in May as the National Day of Prayer, an event now hijacked by Seven Mountains proponents. Check out their bizarre and not a little terrifying promotional clip.