Down, Religious Right Groups Lie, Role Over
Today, the Center for American Progress reports that:
Focus on the Family has mailed brochures to more than 90,000 Missouri homes, arguing that stem cell research under the Missouri ballot initiative would exploit women by luring them into dangerous egg donations. The brochure, “Women’s voices against cloning,” quotes several women’s organizations to show “the risks that this measure [Missouri ballot initiative] poses to women’s health.” The Progress Report spoke with several of the women’s organizations quoted in the brochure who said that Focus on the Family misrepresented their positions and they disagree with the organization’s aims to ban stem cell research. Judy Norsigian, author of Our Bodies, Ourselves, said that while she has some concerns about the somatic cell nuclear transplant (SCNT) technique, she is actually “very supportive of most embryonic stem cell research.”
This follows a disturbing trend among right wing religious groups, one of not checking their facts and even mispresenting reality.
For example, the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures states that the opponents’ argument, that supporters of the Stem Cell Initiative “have a ‘profit motive’ for wanting to pursue stem cell cures, is false and absurd. The truth is, the major medical institutions involved in stem cell research in Missouri – such as the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Washington University School of Medicine and the University of Missouri – are non-profit institutions.”
Yesterday, the Colorado Springs Independent reported that Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals attacked the Christian Coalition. Why? Because according to him (not the New York Times) the Christian Coalition twisted words. According to his associate pastor, “he was saying the Christian Coalition is not a reliable source of information for Christians.” Ouch!
And finally, the Columbus Dispatch reports:
By Thursday, [GOP] state Chairman Robert T. Bennett knew the party had been caught red-handed and issued an apology to the victim, U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, the Democratic nominee for governor. But the scurrilous mission had been accomplished: Let the whispering campaign begin.
The attack had nothing to do with records or resumes or policy. It was brutally personal – and a lie. The message the GOP had asked its followers to spread across the Ohioscape is that Strickland and his wife are gay, never mind their nearly 20 years of marriage.
In yet another perversion of religion, the state party hired a conservative Christian to do the dirty work, using a computer at party headquarters to spread the rumor via e-mail to “profamily” conservatives. Gary Lankford, headmaster of a Christian home school, started in early July as the Ohio GOP’s “social conservative coordinator.”
That’s four recent examples. Whether a person is progressive or conservative, sloppy research and deliberate dishonesty hurts the cause of faith. As became clear in Ralph Reed’s Georgia defeat, decent folks with faith-full traditions of honesty and good work are beginning to see in the endorsement of Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition, and Restoration Ohio a dogged reason to doubt.
