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Growing Mormon-Catholic Alliance: Partners Behind Christian Right’s Religious Discrimination Agenda

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While Tony Perkins, Brian Brown, Bryan Fischer, and other Christian Right pundits of the more shrill variety may be easy to ignore as they demand a right to discriminate on Fox News, there is a more dangerous coalition emerging. One of the primary drivers of the movement to corrupt and redefine religious freedom isn’t someone in a shouting match on cable news, but a decades-long alliance of top Mormons and Catholics.

While Mormons and Catholics may seem like unlikely allies, from a political perspective they bring complementary strengths to their partnership. The Mormon Church has an amazing amount of wealth on hand (it is estimated to be worth over $40 billion – gathered from real estate and commercial holdings, mandatory tithing collections from members, and even a theme park in Hawaii) and a world-class grassroots mobilization and recruitment force. The Catholic Church and related groups, on the other hand, enjoy a much higher approval rating with the American public (62 percent) and thus can put a more popular face on public political campaigns. 

The political allegiance between Mormons and Catholics dates back at least to the 1990s in Hawaii, during the first U.S. battle over same-sex marriage. As I previously reported, while the Mormons could—and did—provide funding and volunteers to that campaign, the more popular Catholic Church acted as the coalition’s public face. The Catholic Church and other visible allies would thereby absorb any public backlash directed towards the coalition, while the Mormons could push their agenda without any serious consequences to their public image. The strategy was effective, and one they repeated during California’s Proposition 8 fight.

The alliance grows stronger with each passing year. Epitomizing the relationship is Princeton professor Robert P. George (image, left), one of the most influential Catholic conservative activists in the country, who partnered with the Mormon Church to create the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). He also joined the editorial advisory board of the Mormon Church-owned newspaper, the Deseret News. George is also the founder of the Witherspoon Institute (responsible for the debunked Mark Regnerus study – which was reported first by the Deseret News), was the primary author of the anti-LGBTQ Manhattan Declaration, and is one of the top national strategists leading the charge to redefine religious freedom into a sword religious institutions can use to force their doctrinal positions on individuals. This week, Mormon Church-owned Brigham Young University awarded George an “honorary Doctor of Law and Moral Values” degree, calling him “one of the most able and articulate advocates of the proposition that faith and reason are not incompatible.”

Dallin H. Oaks (image, center), one of the Mormon Church’s 12 Apostles, has been deeply involved in the effort to redefine religious freedom. He sits on the board of the World Congress of Families, an international culture-warring collection of Religious Right organizations that works all over the world to use (redefined) religious freedom arguments to enact anti-LGBTQ and anti-reproductive health laws (such as the Russian law that criminalizes any positive speech about homosexuality). In recognition of his work with WCF and frequent speeches before conservative groups extoling the benefits of using one’s faith as an excuse to dodge pesky civil rights laws, Oaks received the 2013 “Canterbury Medal” for his “defense of religious liberty” from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a conservative Catholic legal organization responsible for the Hobby Lobby ruling at the Supreme Court and one of the top groups in the Right’s religious freedom campaign.

Speaking earlier this month at the Mormon Church’s semi-annual General Conference to all 15 million members worldwide, Oaks quoted a speech given by Philadelphia Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput at Brigham Young University. “Speaking of ‘concerns that the LDS and Catholic communities share,’ such as ‘about marriage and family, the nature of our sexuality, the sanctity of human life, and the urgency of religious liberty,’ he [Chaput] said this: ‘I want to stress again the importance of really living what we claim to believe. That needs to be a priority—not just in our personal and family lives but in our churches, our political choices, our business dealings, our treatment of the poor; in other words, in everything we do.’” Chaput continued, in his speech to BYU, “Religion is to democracy as a bridle is to a horse.”

Another of the Mormon Church’s top leaders, Henry B. Eyring, met with Chaput and Pope Francis in November 2014 at the Vatican. Eyring described their strengthening alliance and mutual dedication to opposing civil liberties for LGBTQ people and women, saying “I think the thing was, even with other faiths, they have exactly the same feeling that the root of good society is good families.” Another of the Mormon 12 Apostles, D. Todd Christofferson, will be one of the featured speakers later this year at the Catholic’s anti-LGBTQ World Meeting of Families, where the Pope will also be speaking.

The crowning, and perhaps most insidious, achievement thus far of the Mormon-Catholic alliance is the much-hailed Utah nondiscrimination/religious freedom law. While the Christian Right’s state-level Hobby-Lobbyized RFRAs (with their overt anti-LGBTQ intentions) have generated a significant national backlash (particularly in the cases of Indiana and Arizona) and are susceptible to court challenges, the Utah RFRA “lite” law actually won endorsements from LGBTQ groups. The Mormon Church enlisted the help of Christian Right operative Robin Fretwell Wilson, who works closely with right-wing Catholic groups like The Becket Fund and Alliance Defending Freedom, to co-write the law. The end product was a bill written in such a way that LGBTQ groups hungry for a “win” in a Red state could claim victory in the form of a watered-down nondiscrimination law. The price—knowingly or otherwise—was the endorsement by high-profile LGBTQ groups of the Right’s false contention that religious freedom is somehow at odds with LGBTQ rights, requiring a compromise – or, as some LGBTQ groups described the creation of Utah’s law, “a collaboration.” Such endorsements have set a dangerous precedent for the advancement of RFRAs and other efforts to corrupt actual religious freedom in various state legislatures. Right-wing groups can (and do) point to LGBTQ support in Utah as a means of mainstreaming their agenda and deflating their opposition.

Catholic news agencies have hailed the “Mormon law” as a model to be repeated across the country. If that happens, we may well see more such pyrrhic victories, in which gains in non-discrimination legislation are overwhelmed by the emerging “right to discriminate” on the basis of religious convictions.. This is where compromising on the true meaning of religious freedom could lead. We may also see the Mormon Church emerge as a more prominent—albeit less public—partner of the evangelical and Catholic elements of the Christian Right as they continue their quest to corrupt the meaning of religious freedom. 

 

Image via The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Newsroom

 

Eric Ethington is a journalist, activist, and researcher. Originally from Utah, he now works in Boston for a social justice think tank. His writing, advocacy work, and research have been featured on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, CNBC, the New York Times, The Guardian, and The Public Eye magazine. Follow him on Twitter @EricEthington. 

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Trump Adviser Scanned and Saved Contents of Box That Had Classified Docs: Report

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May 21, 2024

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An unnamed witness, reportedly an adviser to Donald Trump, scanned the contents of a box that had contained classified documents, and saved those digital files to her laptop, which belongs to a political action committee which pays Donald Trump’s legal expenses.

The stunning revelation was tucked away in the footnote of an 87-page court document unsealed by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell on Tuesday, in response to a separate filing in which Trump’s attorneys are claiming prosecutorial misconduct, according to Politico’s Kyle Cheney who reported the details.

The filing revealed that at least four more classified documents had been found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and resort, in his bedroom, even after FBI agents executed and completed a search warrant months earlier, in August of 2022.

Judge Howell, Politico reports, “noted that [a] Trump adviser connected to his Save America PAC had acknowledged scanning the contents of the box that contained the classified materials in 2021 and storing them on a personal laptop provided by the PAC.”

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In the footnote Judge Howell writes, “on January 6, 2023, the former president’s counsel informed the government that, in 2021, WITNESS scanned the contents of the box—produced on January 5, 2023, and previously containing classified documents—onto a laptop in her possession owned by the Save America Political Action Committee (‘PAC’), a PAC formed by the former president in 2020. … The former president’s counsel saved those scans onto a thumb drive and provided the thumb drive to the government that day.”

Axios adds: “A witness scanned the contents of the box containing the classified materials and stored them on a laptop in her possession owned by Trump’s Save America PAC, according to a footnote in the opinion.”

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell, pointing to the Politico report, adds: “This was the incident where Trump aide Chamberlain Harris — known as ROTUS, short for Receptionist of the United States — scanned and uploaded classified docs onto her laptop … Guardian reported this contemporaneously last year, as did CNN.”

Lowell also pointed to The Guardian’s report.

The Save America PAC according to Open Secrets, raised well over $108 million in the 2021-2022 cycle, and spent over $121 million. In the 2023-2024 cycle, the PAC has raised over $76 million, and spent well over $85 million.

“Since leaving office, former president Trump has been involved in an array of criminal and civil litigation — some that relates to his campaigns and presidency and some that does not. To cover the enormous legal bills, estimated at more than $100 million, he has turned to his political action committees (PACs), essentially having campaign donors pay costs for which he would otherwise be on the hook personally,” the Brennan Center for Justice reported earlier this month.

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“Following his 2020 election loss, Trump received more than $250 million in donations from supporters to fuel an ‘election defense fund.’ He divided that money between two campaign entities: his 2020 presidential campaign committee, which he subsequently converted into a freestanding PAC called Make America Great Again (MAGA) PAC, and a second entity called Save America PAC, which is a so-called ‘leadership PAC‘ (a type of PAC that a federal candidate can establish for the ostensible purpose of supporting other candidates).”

National security attorney Brad Moss on Tuesday, commenting on Politico’s report of the additional classified documents at Mar-a-Lago wrote: “Reminder that the MAL docs case was and will always have been the cleanest, most straightforward criminal prosecution of the four against the former president. That the public won’t see it brought to fruition before they go to the voting booth is a stain on the judicial system.”

This article has been updated with the details from The Guardian’s Lowell.

 

 

 

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‘Incomprehensible’: More Classified Docs Were Found at Mar-a-Lago, Unsealed Court Filing Reveals

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May 21, 2024

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Donald Trump had more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago that were not originally found when the FBI completed its execution of a search warrant, according to a recently unsealed 87-page court document in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Donald Trump in the Espionage Act case. Trump faces 40 felony charges in the case, including 32 directly related to classified documents..

“No excuse is provided as to how the former president could miss the classified-marked documents found in his own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago,” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote, according to Forbes. Judge Howell “notes the government forced Trump’s attorneys to search Trump’s properties even after FBI investigators searched Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.”

Trump’s attorneys conducted searches of some of his other properties after the FBI “raid,” including his Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump Tower in Manhattan, and other storage units and offices.

More classified documents were located at “an off-site office, a storage unit and at Mar-a-Lago, Howell wrote, noting Trump’s lawyers found a box with four documents that included classified materials in a Mar-a-Lago closet.”

READ MORE: Republican Calls for Economic ‘Shut Down’ While Accusing Biden of Marxist Agenda

Politico added, “The FBI’s August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago confirmed that dozens of other classified documents remained on the property — but as Howell notes, there were at least two more rounds of classified materials found on Trump’s property following additional searches.”

In a damning portion of the filing, Forbes also reports, Judge Howell “asserts Trump purposely obstructed the government’s investigation after it subpoenaed him to turn over all the remaining classified documents in his possession, saying the government ‘sufficiently demonstrated’ Trump violated the obstruction statute by showing he ‘intentionally concealed the existence of additional documents bearing classification markings’ from his attorneys.”

Professor of law, MSNBC/NBC News legal contributor, and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance remarked, “This makes Judge Cannon’s foot dragging on this case even more incomprehensible. Not like it involves serious matters, or anything.”

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has ground the trial to a halt, most recently putting an indefinite suspension in place.

ABC News adds that Special Counsel Jack Smith believed Trump “instructed aides to return several boxes they had previously removed from a storage room in the [Mar-a-Lago] club’s basement — without being caught on camera.”

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Judge Howell wrote that after Trump attorney Evan Corcoran “informed Trump of the subpoena for video footage on June 24, 2022, it set into motion a scramble by [co-defendant Walt] Nauta to change his travel plans and fly from Bedminster, New Jersey, to Palm Beach, Florida.”

“The government urged that this scramble to Mar-a-Lago in the wake of the June 24, 2022 phone call reflects the former president’s realization that the removal of the boxes from the storage room before [redacted] search was captured on camera — and his attempts to ensure that any subsequent movement of the boxes back to the storage room could occur off camera,” Judge Howell wrote. She added: “This theory draws support from the curious absence of any video footage showing the return of the remaining boxes to the storage room, which necessarily occurred at some point between June 3, 2022 — when the room had approximately [redacted] boxes, according to FBI agents and [redacted] — and the execution of the search warrant on August 8, 2022 — when agents counted 73 boxes.”

 

 

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Republican Calls for Economic ‘Shut Down’ While Accusing Biden of Marxist Agenda

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5 hours ago

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May 21, 2024

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U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) is calling on Congress to “shut down” the U.S. economy over the southern border, while accusing President Joe Biden of Marxist policies and denouncing his border legislation that Donald Trump ordered killed months ago.

Congresswoman Spartz on Tuesday spoke to Fox News Business host Maria Bartiromo in a rambling interview on the Senate bipartisan border bill that Donald Trump ordered killed. Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is one again trying to pass it.

Rep. Spartz said, “we need to get them back, you know, to really put pressure to control the border. So I just don’t see anything else left there because no one wants to shut down the economy, unfortunately. We should really for such a serious issue, but Republicans are not gonna do it. And, and you know, and we’re not just going to let Democrats have messagings bill with lots of loopholes. There are way more loopholes in that bill than people even realized.”

The economy is a top issue for 2024 presidential election voters.

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After calling to shut down the economy, which economists for months have shown is doing extremely well, she then falsely accused President Joe Biden of socialism and enacting “socialist policies by Karl Marx.”

“I think we need to have a serious discussion what really Bidenomics is and how it resembles socialist policies by Karl Marx where it’s not just, you know, Biden administration had failed policy in a lot of fronts with its supply chain, whether we’re dealing with energy, but also they’ve been subsidizing corporations very close to the government in trying to control financial markets, in order in essence control the means of production and financial markets. That’s what socialism really is.”

The Biden administration fixed the supply chain crisis created during the Trump administration, improved the supply chain, and continues to massively invest in it.

“And now they are trying to use you know, the government power to pick losers and winners and you know, this, winners are going to be people who can pay, give campaign contribution to Biden’s reelection campaign, and losers are going to be all of us. And this is a serious discussion we need to have because this level of spending and subsidy cannot continue, it’s destructive and inflation is going to destroy the middle class and people low income.”

Donald Trump recently asked top oil and gas executives to donate $1 billion to his campaign in exchange for lower taxes and a rollback of President Biden’s climate and environmental protections.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Wack Pack’: Questions Swirl Over ‘Trump Uniforms’ and Who’s Funding ‘Weird’ Trial Surrogates

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