By: Judith Bandsma To: Michael Hardy Re: FOF UPDATE, STAAL MH+gt; Evidence, please. The ne
By: Judith Bandsma
To: Michael Hardy
Re: FOF UPDATE, STAAL
MH> Evidence, please.
The next few posts should present it to you...**IF** you will bother to
read the whole thing and not start justifying everything from the start.
One post is from someone who lives in Colorado Springs and deals with
FoF every day, on the street...upclose and personal. The other is from
Dobson himself. Full of lies, inaccuracies and inflammatory rhetoric.
Read it and then tell me that FoF is not a hate group.
[Please Note: The opinions below are those of the author, NOT
those of the Department or the University.]
[Please Note: Portions of this letter are not suitable for
children.]
August 1995
Dear Friends,
I want to talk to you this month about what could be the most
important topic I've addressed in many years. This matter has
profound implications for the institution of the family and for
what we have called "the defense of righteousness," yet it will
not be covered adequately by the secular press. Thus, I'm asking
that you give particular attention to the words that follow, even
if you don't often read my written comments. The events about to
unfold on the world scene are almost beyond comprehension.
From Aug. 30 to Sept. 15, 1995, delegates from more than 170
sovereign nations will attend the United Nations Fourth World
Conference on Women in Beijing, China. It will represent the most
radical, atheistic and anti-family crusade in the history of the
world, and your own government is pulling the strings and
supporting a disproportionate share of the costs. The extremists
who are preparing for and promoting this conference are a million
miles outside the American mainstream, and yet they will be
speaking in Beijing with the authority of the United States
government. The more I learn about what these radical feminists
want to impose on the human family, the more appalled I am that
so few churches, Christian magazines and religious radio stations
have chosen to alert our citizens to the implicit danger. It is a
mystery, in fact, how such enormous threats to our spiritual and
cultural heritage could have slithered into our midst without due
notice or alarm.
Make no mistake about it: most of what Christianity stands for
will be challenged during this atheistic conference. Every good
and perfect gift from the hand of the Creator will be mocked and
vilified by many of its delegates. That is their agenda. That is
their program. And if they have their way, the family as it has
been known since antiquity will cease to exist. Let me try to
spell out what is about to occur on the other side of the globe.
First, consider where this international event will be held. No
country on earth has abused and oppressed more women than China,
with its forced abortion policy and its "one child per family"
law. This is a nation that monitors menstrual cycles so it can
identify young women with unapproved pregnancies and drag them
into medical clinics to have their babies killed. It is also a
country that has murdered tens of millions of female infants.
[Interjection by me; this is a blatant lie as regards the Chinese gov't.
They don't care what sex the one child is, as long as there is only one.
Girls are not monitored and women are not 'dragged into clinics' nor has
'the country' murdered tens of millions of female infants. The Chinese
society itself...the people of China, and their ancient customs, have always
held females to be of less worth and infanticide of females is a custom
that goes back as far as the country itself. While a despicable custom, FoF
could, at least, tell the truth about it.]
So effective has been its bias against the feminine gender that the
sex-ratio in large regions of China favors males by 64
percent.[1] What irony, then, that the people who have
annihilated their little girls will host a conference on the
betterment of women. What breathtaking wickedness! And to their
shame, President Bill Clinton and his First Lady, Hillary, have
committed the resources of the United States government to this
travesty. Indeed, at the same time of this writing, Hillary was
the likely chairperson to lead the American delegation to China.
[2] Sending a delegation to China should be unthinkable for two
other reasons. First, Sen. Jesse Helms, chairman of the U.S.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, held hearings in May to
investigate a deeply disturbing practice occurring inside China.
A half-dozen witnesses testified that the Chinese government is
satisfying its needs for hard cash by executing young prisoners
and then "harvesting" their organs while their bodies are still
warm. Sue Lloyd-Roberts, a BBC reporter, and Harry Wu, who spent
19 years in China's forced labor camps, showed the senators a
shocking videotape of the actual executions. (I also saw a
similar videotape while in Scotland three years ago.) Standing
nearby were surgical vans and medical teams waiting to
cannibalize the bodies just moments after death. The organs thus
extracted are sold at black-market prices to Westerners desperate
for kidneys, hearts, livers, corneas, etc. Who knows how this
lucrative market for body parts has influenced China's
inclination to kill young men and women accused of various minor
offenses? Even without this financial incentive, prisoners have
been executed historically for simply disagreeing with their
government. Mr. Wu reported that he witnessed such an execution
of a fellow inmate in 1970 who had merely written "Down with
Chairman Mao" on a cigarette pack.[3] (Late information: In early
May, Wu was arrested in Northern China and charged with espionage
and high treason. If convicted, he will be sentenced to
death.)[4]
If that isn't enough to turn one's stomach, consider this:
According to World (which also reported the practice described
above), human fetuses have begun to appear on menus of Chinese
restaurants as a delicacy and health tonic. This account was
cited:
"To investigate widespread rumors that unborn human
beings were being sought and eaten to improve
complexions and promote general well-being, an Eastern
Express reporter on March 1 entered the state-run
Shenzhen Health Center for Women and Children and
requested a fetus for a feigned illness. A female
doctor told the reporter the department had run out of
fetuses, but to come back.
"The next day, according to the paper, the reporter
returned at lunch time. The doctor eventually emerged
from the operating theater holding a fist-sized glass
bottle stuffed with thumb-sized fetuses. She said,
'There are 10 fetuses here, all aborted this morning.
You can take them. We are a state hospital and don't
charge anything. Normally we doctors take them home to
eat[--]all free. Since you don't look well, you can
take them."'[5]
[The Eastern Express reporter, if you will note, is not named. EE is a
religious based 'newspaper' that, if you will excuse the expression, is so
full of shit they stink. The Hague Yearly Meeting reports that their
missionaries in China refute this claim in the strongest terms. It is, quite
simply, a tactic to stir indignation against both abortion AND the
Chinese.]
It is incredible that the Clinton administration has not only
approved U.S. support for a conference on women's rights in such
a country, but it has also granted "most favored nation" trade
status to it as well. According to the President, there is no
connection between China's abuse of human rights and our economic
policies. All that matters, apparently, is that we profit
financially from the relationship.
Since the issue of whether or not to go to China is no longer
debatable, we must ask what the conference organizers hope to
accomplish while they are there? What is their agenda? What can
we anticipate during those 17 fateful days? To answer these
questions, we should look first at who is representing us. The
official U.N. Document which will be promoted in Beijing was
written by a virtual who's who of radical feminists. Chief among
them is that veteran sexist warrior, Bella Abzug. Abzug headed
the infamous International Women's Conference in Houston which
was designed to destroy the family back in 1977. We can thank
President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalyn, for turning that
government-sponsored event over to the likes of Abzug, Gloria
Steinem, Jane Fonda and Betty Friedan. Watching them on
television as they ripped into everything I believed actually
motivated me to join the pro-family movement. When President
Carter announced his follow-up White House Conferences on the
Family two years later, I said to myself, "Not this time, sir.
Not this time!" So what a surprise, 18 years later, to see many
of the same revolutionaries making even more outrageous plans for
the family.
Abzug is a strange choice to be in charge of anything these days.
The Washington Times referred to her as "a fixture in old left
activism." She was an avid supporter of Soviet dictator Josef
Stalin during her days at Hunter College, and she led rallies for
the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.[7] Referring to the
election of Bill Clinton in 1992, she said, "God forbid, or
Goddess forbid, [that] he should lose."[8] She resigned as a
congresswoman to run for the U.S. Senate, and lost.[9] She ran
for mayor of New York City and finished third in a primary
race.[10] Then she ran again for Congress and lost.[11] Her views
are so far off base even the liberal media often ignore them.
Nevertheless, this woman, a radical to the core who represents
only her leftist cohorts, has become our official spokesperson on
morals and the family. She has told us what kind of person
in New York Harbor on June 6, 1993.[25] These women had made the
long and perilous journey to our shores to escape forced abortion
in their homeland. They requested asylum as permitted by an
existing U.S. immigration policy which granted shelter to those
who had fled from forced abortions, forced sterilization, or
other forms of persecution associated with coercive population
control programs. These 180 frightened women clearly met the
provisions of this long-standing policy, but the Clinton
administration was unsympathetic to their plight. After all, the
President favors population control efforts around the world, and
he had no intention of harboring refugees from its oppression.
Thus, he reversed our immigration policy in August 1994 and
placed the women in various prisons and jails around the
country.[26] They remain there to this day, except for 15, who
were scheduled on June 23, 1995, to be granted temporary asylum
in Quito, Ecuador. Presumably, the remaining women will soon be
returned to China where they will face an angry and embarrassed
government. (A late development: Our State Department has denied,
at least temporarily, permission for the 15 Chinese women to be
sent to Ecuador![27] And... the Immigration and Naturalization
Service has just torpedoed Rep. Chris Smith's (R-N.J.) efforts to
invite the Chinese women to testify at Congressional
hearings.[28] How do you spell C-O-V-E-R U-P?)
[RIIIIIGHT! These women left China in a boat, but only ran aground when
they hit NEW YORK harbor. Oh well, if you believe that, I guess you can
believe the rest of it.]
The civil rights organization Voice for Life recently issued the
following statement about the immigrants: "While all the Chinese
refugees had hoped to live in freedom in the United States, they
are all exhausted from their extended period of incarceration,
and they are tired of being treated like criminals."[29]
Let me see, now[--]what are the words engraved on the Statue of
Liberty standing a short distance from where the Golden Venture
ran aground? Don't they say, "Give me your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."?
This travesty reminds me of the large contingent of desperate
Jews who sailed away from Nazi Germany in 1939, only to be denied
immigration in the United States. No country would accept them,
and they were eventually shipped back to Germany to face Hitler's
gas chambers.[30] It was one of the most shameful acts in U.S.
history. The rejection and incarceration of 180 Chinese women
today is almost as reprehensible. But... support for world
population control is the official policy of this administration,
and it has no sympathy for those who flee from it! So onward to
Beijing we go!
A footnote to the sordid story related above: Can we forget that
in 1993, just before the immigration policy was changed to
exclude those fleeing forced abortion, the Clinton administration
fought hard for HIV-infected patients to be granted admittance to
this country. Congress overruled the President by an overwhelming
vote. I guess it comes down to this: Contagious HIV patients:
"Yes." Oppressed Chinese mothers: "No way!"
Despite the distressing news I have shared, I hope you won't get
discouraged. This band of left-wing radicals that is heading up
our delegation to Beijing does not represent the great American
people. The insanity of their agenda is not on the ascent[--]it's
on its way out. Our country is becoming increasingly
conservative, not more liberal. Indeed, the conference in China
may represent the twilight of an outrageous idea that has run its
course at home. If we can just keep the ultra-liberals from
exporting their failed policies around the world, there may be
light at the end of the tunnel.
Before resorting to panic, therefore, we must remember Whom we
are working for! I was reminded of that good news after a church
service Shirley and I attended last Sunday. A man I didn't know
came up and shook my hand. Without even introducing himself he
said, "I just attended a reunion of my family, and so many of my
relatives said they were praying for you." With that, he began to
cry and walked away. I was overwhelmed to realize that this man
and his family had been on their knees, asking the Lord to bless
and protect me and this ministry. I know there are thousands of
other wonderful folks who are holding us up in prayer day after
day. That is what keeps us going in these times.
In conclusion, let me remind you that it is expensive to send a
delegation to China and to support all that Focus on the Family
is committed to doing. We need your help to get the job done. And
we'd like to hear from you when time permits.
God's richest blessings to you all.
Sincerely,
James C. Dobson, Ph.D.
President
P.S. For the benefit of the skeptical, let me assure you that
every word in this letter has been carefully documented. Nothing
has been exaggerated or overstated. A quick examination of the
official U.N. draft document will confirm the mess our government
has created.
Endnotes
[And, although it says 'endnotes' there...there were no endnotes]
By: Judith Bandsma
To: Michael Hardy
Re: [1/2] Out of Focus
Date: 25 August 1993
Subject: What's wrong with the Religious Right
From: citizens@cscns.com (David Bruce, PhD; Member, Citizens Project)
X-Copyright: Copyright (c) 1993 by David Bruce. This material may
be freely copied and distributed for noncommercial purposes
provided that this notice remains intact. Commercial use of
this material requires prior written permission from the
author.
X-Disclaimer: THIS MATERIAL DOES NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF
CITIZENS PROJECT. IT IS PROVIDED SOLELY AS A SERVICE TO OUR
PARTICIPANTS.
Several months ago, on a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon, a young
woman and middle aged man rang my doorbell. When I answered, the
young woman somewhat nervously stated that they had come to confirm
"the census" and asked if I would be "good enough" to participate.
I was a little suspicious: "You mean the official U.S. census?"
They both nodded affirmatively, so I asked the young woman "Where
are you from?" I looked at her; she looked at the middle aged man
and he smiled benevolently and said, "From your local neighborhood
church." My suspicion grew; I couldn't help but ask the young
woman, why she hadn't responded to my question, didn't she know
where she was from? But never mind, confirming the census sounded
like a civic-minded thing to do regardless of who was putting in
the leg work, so I agreed to participate. "Alright, first
question: 'Do you believe in God Almighty?" We had just exceeded
my limit of tolerable deviance. As a Unitarian, I've actively
encouraged tolerance and have developed a sincere personal
appreciation for religious and cultural diversity. But I can't
stand being lied to; I lost my temper: "There were no questions
about God (Almighty or otherwise) on the census; I know; I filled
it out; You're lying to me; Why would you lie? Did 'my local
neighborhood church' send you here to lie to me? Does Jesus know
what you're doing?" By the time I paused to take a breath, they
were already half way down the walkway; she, near tears and he
assuring her that I was possessed (or something like that).
I had acted badly and I knew it; I was frustrated and disappointed
with my own response. Clearly, they were in the wrong but what I
had done probably just confirmed all their negative stereotypes of
people, like me, who might not choose to attend their "local
neighborhood church". Who were these "church" people, and what
made them think they had the right to intrude on my Sunday
afternoon under false pretenses? Over the next several months, my
activities with Citizens Project allowed me a better understanding
of what had transpired that afternoon. As you know, Citizens
Project is a non profit group concerned about threats to public and
private civil liberties posed by certain factions of the religious
right. As a member of Citizens Project Board, I've had the
opportunity to meet with senior executives from Focus on the
Family, attend one of their "Community Impact" seminars and also
talk with several other folks involved with "the religious right".
Some of what I've discovered might interest you.
Most of my information has been drawn from pamphlets and programs
provided by one particular group: Focus on the Family. I hasten to
point out that Focus is by no means the most extreme group on "the
religious right". In fact, they speak very pejoratively of the
"loose canons", "Bible-thumpers" and "bomb-throwers" whom they see
as having gone "too far". I really think Focus expected those of
us from Citizens Project they invited to attend their day-long
Community Impact Seminar to return and reassure the rest of you
that we had nothing to fear from Focus. They miscalculated.
The Community Impact Seminar provided considerable evidence that
Focus fully intends to impose their own "Christian solutions" on a
wide variety of complex social problems. Claiming the scriptures
as the "exclusive", "literal" and "inerrant" word of God, their
agenda involves removing barriers between church and state and
"re"establishing "Christian rule" in America. Although they've
discovered that Christian television and radio programs provide a
very effective way to connect "like-minded Christians", the seminar
made it clear that social activism in local neighborhood churches
is also necessary. Replacing traditional "works of mercy" with "a
quest for justice" through locally-coordinated economic and
political action transforms their fundamentalist, evangelical
beliefs from a source of personal values and spiritual strength to
a framework for social, political and judicial change. During the
seminar, Focus made a number of theological, philosophical and
historical claims concerning the identity of those who shared their
views. Before suggesting how we might counter the threat I think
they pose, it is important for you to understand who they really
are.
Spiritual Claims
Theologically and spiritually speaking, Focus on the Family claims
to represent traditional Christian beliefs and values. They paint
themselves as somewhat moderate, mainstream representatives of the
faith; however, even the surveys they used during the seminar
presentations suggested that only a minority of Americans who
"claim" to be Christians really accept the Bible as the exclusive,
literal and inerrant word of God. A friend, who heads a Biblical
Christian organization (seen by some as being even more
conservative than Focus) was very quick to admit that the Bible is
full of metaphors (i.e., it is not literal). While there are many
who claim to be Christians who insist that the Bible is the only
(i.e., exclusive) divine revelation, many others accept the
possibility that other great religious works also contain
revelation and enlightenment. Many such moderate Christians are
embarrassed by the dogmatic and exclusive perspectives put forward
by groups such as Focus and are eager to disassociate themselves
from such groups.
In his book, Evil: the Shadow Side of Reality, author John Sanford
recounts the story of the grand inquisitor from Dostoevsky's The
Brothers Karamazov. Basically, Christ has returned to earth and
the grand inquisitor has had him thrown in prison. It's not that
the grand inquisitor believes Jesus is an imposter; the grand
inquisitor accuses Jesus of having come back to disturb and disrupt
the work the church has been carrying out in his name. The
inquisitor claims that the church has "corrected" Christ's
teachings which had placed on mankind the impossible burden of
being free but which led to too much misery. The church had lifted
this burden of freedom so that people could be happy. Needless to
say, Sanford as well as many others who call themselves Christians
do not share the grand inquisitors perspective. As Sanford
suggests:
The greatest ethical value, according to Jesus, is to become a free
person, and this means a conscious person... When we are told to
conform to a standard of goodness imposed by collective authority,
and to repress everything from our consciousness that contradicts
this, we have lost our freedom; we are no longer conscious people
responsible for ourselves. But in Jesus' ethic man is left with
the alternatives life poses, the problem of his own duality and the
necessity for psychological honesty. Growth in consciousness is
valued more highly by Jesus than conformity to "goodness." Freedom
is of the highest psychological value, because this alone makes
possible the development of consciousness and love. (p.83)
Focus' implicit insistence on accepting a particular interpretation
of scripture as the literal and inerrant "truth" obviates
individual conscious decision making. The perspective taken by the
grand inquisitor and Focus on the Family requires individual
cognitive abstinence. However, it is unfair to blame Christianity
itself for the imposition of mind-numbing servitude as the price of
salvation. There are still grand inquisitors among us but many
modern Christians I know are much more comfortable with the
perspective Sanford expresses.
One last point to be made involves the claim of the "inerrancy" of
the scriptures. The belief that a work as extensive and eclectic
as the Bible is without error necessarily rests on the assumption
that the work itself is without internal contradiction. However,
when we read in Matthew 5:9: "Blessed are the peacemakers", it is
a little disconcerting to read Jesus' words several chapters later
(Matthew 10:34) "Think not that I come to send peace on earth, I
come not to send peace but to send a sword." Similarly there
appears to be an inconsistency between the admonition in Matthew
(26:52) that "All that take the sword shall perish by it." and the
direction in Luke (22:36) that "He who hath no sword, let him sell
his garments and buy one". However, it is in Luke (6:27) where
Jesus tells his disciples to "Love thine enemies; do good to them
that hate you" but John (2:15) tells that in dealing with his own
enemies (the money changers in the temple), Jesus "made a scourge
of small cords and drove them out of the temple ... and poured out
the changer's money and overthrew their tables" (tough love
perhaps?).
In an attempt to understand Focus on the Family's support of
Amendment 2, a friend of mine called and asked for Biblical
references for their position. She was referred to the story of
Lot and the Sodomites in the book of Genesis. Here's how the story
goes: two angels were visiting Lot one afternoon, when a rowdy
crowd from nearby Sodom came by and demanded that Lot send out the
young men that they (the Sodomites) might know them (in the
Biblical sense). Being a man of high virtue who loved God, Lot
resisted and said "No; ...take my young daughters instead."
Several chapters later, the young daughters exact their revenge by
getting Lot drunk and partying with him all night long (in the
modern sense of the word). We all know what God did to Sodom (and
Gomorrah as well) and I suspect if
[...something went wrong here...]
obscure letter to a friend. The words of John Jay, first Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court were offered as being much more
representative of the perspective shared by our founding fathers:
"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and
it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest, of a
Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for its rulers"
(p.19)
In an earlier article, Hocus Focus, I present a number of
historical quotations which directly contradict this claim. From
Franklin's "lighthouses are more useful than churches", to John
Adam's dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law which vehemently warns
of the danger of intertwining issues of church and state, to Thomas
Paine's tirades against the Bible and hierarchically-imposed
religious beliefs and Thomas Jefferson's authorship of a his own
New Testament which deliberately omits the resurrection and
ascension, it is clear that many of "our founding fathers" would
have been just as uncomfortable with Focus' current approach as you
and I are. In particular, the implication that these men were the
kind of Christians who would be attentively tuned to Dr. Dobson
every afternoon seems unimaginable. They were certainly men of
high moral character, sincerely committed to creating a system
which promoted life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but
there were few Focus-style fundamentalists or grand inquisitors
among them.
The Current Situation
So the Focus approach is neither Christian nor Objectivist and is
without the historical foundation they assert. Nonetheless, groups
like this on the religious right represent a force to be reckoned
with, both nationally and locally. Nationally, these groups were
featured prominently at the Republican Convention (and some have
suggested with disastrous electoral consequences). Television
evangelist, Pat Robertson, who already controls two television
networks and numerous radio stations, recently offered to purchase
United Press International. Our own local Focus on the Family
grosses 10's of millions of dollars annually. During a tour of
their facilities, they told us they receive 10,000 letters and
2,000 phone calls daily and respond to every one in less than 5
working days. Locally, Focus employs over 900 employees, all of
whom have accepted a statement of fundamentalist religious beliefs
as a condition of employment. And as I suggested previously, Focus
is by no means the most extreme of the groups on the religious
right. Over 50 other national, evangelical or fundamentalist
"Christian" organizations already have headquarters here in
Colorado Springs and reports suggest that more are on their way.
Our Response
What can we do? We can't ignore them - we and those we care about
have too much to lose. We can't fight them - letting our anger and
frustration out plays directly into the hands of our adversaries;
they strive to be models of good citizenship; they've learned a lot
from the likes of Hargis, Swaggert and Baker; it's unlikely they'll
get caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. We can't even
join them - their loyalty oath would exclude most of us. Even
dialog with them is problematic; their views and values render them
untrustworthy. Their standard of truth is scriptural consistency,
not objective, empirical evidence or logical coherence. As our
experience with the campaign they waged in support of Amendment 2
attests, they are ready, willing, and able to misrepresent
themselves and their beliefs for the purposes of social or
political expediency.
We are unlikely to change them; we must accept responsibility for
changing ourselves. There is little we can do directly to persuade
them that sex education does not encourage promiscuity, condoms do
not spread Aids, the legal availability of abortions do not
increase teenage pregnancies, homosexuals are not out to recruit
their children, humanists are not out to destroy their families and
tolerance is not really a dirty word. These are their beliefs and
we can't change them until they start looking at evidence and
listening to reason. As I said, what we can change is ourselves:
we must become VITAL. We must renew our commitment to be active
participants in a free and constitutional democracy; we must
reclaim our roles and responsibilities as "citizens". For me, each
of the five letters in the word VITAL serves as a reminder for what
I must do to contribute as a citizen: V - Visible; I - Informed; T
- Truthful; A - Accountable and L - Liberal.
Thomas Jefferson once said all tyranny needs to gain a foothold is
for people of good conscience to remain silent. The two-to-one
margin of victory Amendment 2 received in this community has given
license to some to openly express their narrow-minded and
hate-filled bigotry in even public settings and over the public
airways. When we sit silently; others assume we're condoning or
concurring with these opinions. The voice of love and reason are
soft but extremely powerful. Living in this town gives each of us
many opportunities to exercise or commitment to traditional values
such as liberty, tolerance and cultural diversity. Each of us must
become more Visible. Some of you may have heard of Ruth Williams,
a therapist who was viciously attacked early one Saturday morning
in her office. After she had been knocked unconscious, Mace was
sprayed in her face, shoes and socks, religious slogans were spray
painted on the walls of her office, crosses scratched on her hand
and back, a knife stuck the last edition of Freedom Watch to her
door and the Celebrate Diversity bumper sticker on her car covered
with spray paint. I don't know Ruth, but Doug and Amy were in
contact with her to provide Citizens Project's support. At the end
of the initial conversation, Amy asked Ruth, "Is there anything at
all you need that we might be able to provide?" After a short
pause, Ruth replied, "Could I get another bumper sticker?"
Being courageous is not enough; we also must be Informed. Without
knowledge, we might even find ourselves being persuaded by the
simple solutions the religious right proposes. Equally dangerous
is the problem of automatically opposing any position simply on the
knowledge that it has been proposed by the religious right. We
cannot let others do our thinking for us. What kind of God would
give us a mind and not expect us to use it? We must learn to
cherish our doubts and actively seek answers to our questions by
conducting our own research and constructing our own arguments.
Some of the material put out by the religious right contains useful
data and revealing arguments. Its hard to form our own opinions if
we are unfamiliar with alternative arguments and perspectives. It
is, however, a mistake to take their publications at face value:
they will not hesitate to cite articles that have never been
published or ones written by PhDs who've been censored by
professional societies for academic fraud; they lift quotations out
of context to distort their meaning; and often seek only the most
outrageous representatives or spokes-persons to characterize the
views of those who oppose them.
Isn't it appropriate to fight fire with fire? Shouldn't we put our
heads together and create the most compelling counter-arguments to
their claims in order to persuade the masses of their infamy?
Before you say "yes!", stop for a moment and consider your
assumptions about other human beings. If you share the assumptions
of these new age grand inquisitors, then such a strategy might make
sense. Their religion teaches that humankind is naturally sinful
and incapable of thoughtful reflection. Time and again at the
Community Impact Seminar we were reminded that most of us can't
really think but can "only rearrange our prejudices". On the other
hand if you begin with more positive assumptions about humankind,
then creating misleading propaganda is inconsistent. As Marshall
McLuan suggested: the medium is the message; and we must be
consistent; we must be honest; we must be Truthful. We must make
every effort to listen objectively to evidence from all sources and
fairly represent both sides of arguments and alternative positions.
We cannot resist religious tyranny by ourselves becoming
narrow-minded bigots. (Besides someone must teach the religious
fanatics the importance of ethical behavior to a free society.)
We must also be Accountable. Although we may not agree that being
human is synonymous with being sinful, we also recognize that it is
not the same as being perfect. Making mistakes seems to be one of
the most common characteristics of the human condition (at least as
I've experienced it). When mistakes occur we must admit them and
then work to redress any harm we have done. Unlike, those on the
religious right who don't make mistakes because the Bible is the
absolute, exclusive and inerrant word of God (and they have many
worthy clergy to interpret it for them); we're stuck with having to
make decisions under considerable uncertainty. Our knowledge is
often incomplete and our principles somewhat fallible. Once we
accept responsibility for making our own decisions, we also become
responsible for monitoring the social and human consequences of
those decisions. Life is complicated and sometimes things don't go
as we intended them to; when that happens we can't ignore our
responsibility or blame the outcome on metaphysical others. A
willingness to be personally accountable for our decisions is
another requisite of democratic citizenship.
And finally we must become more Liberal. I realize this word has
many meanings, some of which have unpleasant or even pejorative
connotations for some of you. What I mean by becoming more liberal
is loving liberty more fully and completely; recognizing that
whatever rights we might claim for ourselves we must gladly bestow
on others. It also means accepting diversity and working to create
systems where wo
[...something strange happened here....]
mankind, of course. It contradicts Genesis 1:27, which
reads, "So God created man in His own image, in the image of
God he created him; male and female he created them." It
also ignores the words of Jesus, who said, "Haven't you read
that at the beginning the Creator made them male and
female...." Then He said, "For this reason a man will leave
his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two
will become one flesh" (Matthew 19:4-5).
In this instance and so many others, the draft document to
be promoted in Beijing is utterly disdainful of the King of
kings and Lord of lords. But before casting Him aside as
irrelevant, our delegates should take a look at the
Scripture that warns, "Do not be deceived; God cannot be
mocked." (Galatians 6:7).
3. The primary objective in Beijing will be the same as a
similar event held last year in Cairo, Egypt. That
conference was designed to promote safe-sex ideology, condom
usage and "reproductive rights"," (i.e., free and
unrestricted access to abortion) in every nation of the
[Another lie by FoF. 'Reproductive Rights' only briefly touched on abortion,
the major thrust was the right of access to birth control, legal sterilization,
an end to female circumcision.]
world. That was another scary time for the family. It looked
as though the Clinton administration and the radical
feminists would spread their revolutionary idea around the
world. Indeed, there was very little opposition to them.
Leaders of most evangelical denominations sat on the
sidelines, 6,000 miles away, and ignored the storm clouds
gathering in Cairo. Thanks almost entirely to the opposition
of Pope John Paul II and many other Roman Catholic leaders,
the goals of the radicals were not achieved. Rather than
giving up, however, they simply regrouped and began
preparing for a final putsch in Beijing.
In coercing reluctant countries to adopt feminist ideas
about abortion and safe-sex ideology, a carrot-and-stick
approach will be used. United States aid programs for
underdeveloped nations will be linked to the willingness of
foreign governments to implement these "population control"
measures. Those that balk, including predominately Islamic
and Catholic nations, will be threatened with reduced
foreign aid. This coercion is deeply resented in many areas
of the world where people perceive the United States as the
800 pound gorilla throwing its weight around. They also
complain that they can't get help in developing clean water
supplies and medical support, but they can get condoms by
the millions[--]whether they want them or not.[17] Indeed,
President Clinton has requested $635 million in the 1996
budget for international population control and another $400
million at home![18] And, that's your tax money they're
using to kill babies and give condoms to kids.
[Non-inflammatory rhetoric, eh, Mike?]
By the way, President Clinton recently repeated his campaign
statement that "abortion should be safe, legal and rare."
How can he utter those farcical words at the very moment he
is involved to his eyeteeth in the promotion of abortion in
every nation on earth?
4. Homosexual and lesbian rights are central to the philosophy
driving the conference. The Lesbian Caucus played a
prominent role during meetings of the "preparation
committee" at the United Nations. The Gay and Lesbian Human
Rights Commission also issued a declaration which reads, in
part, "We, the undersigned, call upon the Member States to
recognize the right to determine one's sexual identity; the
right to control one's own body, particularly in
establishing intimate relationships; and the right to choose
if, when, and with whom to bear or raise children as
fundamental components of all human rights of all women
regardless of sexual orientation."[19]
Relating again to "the deconstruction of gender" described
above, the goal is to give members of the human family five
genders from which to choose instead of two. When freed from
traditional biases, a person can decide whether to be male,
female, homosexual, lesbian, or transgendered. Some may want
to try all five in time. Homosexuality is considered the
moral equivalent of heterosexuality.[20] For women, however,
the preferred love relationship is lesbian in nature. In
that way male oppressiveness can be negated. Artificial
insemination is the ideal method of producing a pregnancy,
and a lesbian partner should have the same parenting rights
accorded historically to biological fathers. [21]
5. Finally (and there is much more I can't cover in this
letter), the official draft document is extremely hostile to
religion[--]especially that which gender feminists have
demonized as "fundamentalists." By fundamentalists, they
refer to Catholics, Evangelicals, Orthodox Christians,
Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and any other persons whose
religious views contradict feminist dogma. Nothing, they
say, has done more to oppress women or limit their
aspirations than these patriarchal religious beliefs and
teachings. Unbelievably, the people who are representing our
great nation in Beijing are openly antagonistic to what most
of you and I believe with all our hearts.[22]
Now, some of my readers might ask, "So what? Why does it matter
if a group of radical feminists assemble in faraway China to
discuss their kooky ideas? What harm can they do?" The danger
associated with the conference is linked to the unprecedented
influence of the United States in world politics. Remember that
170 nations will be represented there. Imagine the damage that
can be done around the globe if the credibility of this wonderful
country, with all its resources and power, is used to undermine
the family, promote abortion, teach immoral behavior to
teenagers, incite anger and competition between men and women,
advocate lesbian and homosexual behavior, and vilify those with
sincere religious faith. This is Satan's trump card if I have
ever seen it.
Remember, too, that people from underdeveloped nations don't
understand that the Clinton administration does not represent the
majority of the American people on these radical positions. They
will see Madeline Albright, our representative to the United
Nations, Timothy Wirth, our assistant secretary of state, Vice
President Al Gore, and perhaps the First Lady herself leading the
parade to Beijing. What is the international community to assume
but that the most powerful and respected nation on earth has
endorsed a new understanding of human relationships. Furthermore,
they will quickly recognize that foreign aid is dependent upon
going along with the politically correct program.
Knowledgeable conservative writers are beginning to recognize the
scope of the threat at our door. One of them, Dale O'Leary, has
studied gender feminist ideology extensively. She wrote the
following:
To the average person the Gender Feminist agenda
appears as pure nonsense. How could anyone sincerely
believe that society could do away with family, impose
50/50 quotas on all activities, eliminate motherhood,
and institute polymorphous perversity? Five years ago
people laughed at the suggestion, but those who have
been exposed to the influence of the Gender Feminist
agenda aren't laughing anymore.
Many mothers, who sent their lovely daughters off to
college to prepare for careers, are weeping, because
their daughters have come home with lesbian lovers. An
April 26, 1995, article entitled 'Dating Game Today
Breaks Traditional Gender Roles,' which appeared in the
Wall Street Journal reported on a growing number of
young women coming out of U.S. universities where they
have been indoctrinated in women's studies programs who
are engaging in sexual relations with women and men.
Included is a report on Ms. Anji Dickson who can't
decide whether to marry her boyfriend or grow old with
a woman.
...in Ms. Dickson's generation young women openly enter
into intimate relationships with both genders that are
more than just experiments. They resist being described
as straight or gay[--]or even bisexual, which some
think suggests promiscuity and one-night stands.
E-Mail Fredric L. Rice / The Skeptic Tank