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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

Trump Picks Pastor Who Says Jews, Muslims Will Go To Hell – To Pray at New US Embassy in Jerusalem

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Pastor Robert Jeffress, a Fox News contributor, megachurch Baptist preacher from Dallas, and close Trump ally and surrogate, has been chosen by the Trump administration to lead a prayer at Monday’s opening dedication celebration of the new – and highly controversial – U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. The choice of Jeffress makes this highly controversial move all the more problematic, given his views on literally every other religion, including other Christian religions, Judaism, and Islam.

Jeffress, who hosts both radio and TV shows that are broadcast in hundreds of cities in the U.S. and around the world, has a long history of delivering incendiary and bigoted remarks.

In short, Jeffress says that if you’re not a Christian – and a certain type of Christian – you’re going to hell, as Right Wing Watch has documented.

He has said Islam promotes pedophilia, and is “evil,” “violent,” and a “false” religion.

Pastor Jeffress, in a now infamous 2011 interview, also said that “every other religion in the world is wrong: Islam is wrong, it is a heresy from the pit of Hell; Mormonism is wrong, it is a heresy from the pit of Hell,” and, “Judaism, you can’t be saved being a Jew.”

Unsurprisingly, Jeffress also preaches that “homosexuality is an abomination,” “is degrading, is a degenerative practice,” “detestable,” “unclean,” and “a perversion.” Same-sex marriages, according to Jeffress, are “counterfeit” and “cheapen the value” of different-sex marriages.

Jeffress has also called Mormonism a “cult,” and says Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam are also.

Attendees to the opening celebration of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem may also be disturbed to hear that Pastor Jeffress has said “Muhammad was nothing but a blood-thirsty warlord.”

Trump is the first U.S. President to ignore decades of negotiations between Israel and Palestinians in the battle over recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The New York Times, in an explainer on the issue, says Trump moving the embassy to Jerusalem “would almost certainly kill any viable peace deal.”

Jeffress serves on President Donald Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board and is a member of his White House Faith Initiative.

Video via Media Matters/Facebook

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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

Religious-Right Attorney Says Companies Offering to Provide Abortion Assistance Are Paying to ‘Kill Your Children’

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5 days ago

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June 30, 2022

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In the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and reversing 50 years of precedent by eliminating the constitutional right to abortion, dozens of companies announced that they could provide coverage or reimbursements to employees who may now need to travel out of state to obtain an abortion.

Appearing on VCY America’s “Crosstalk” program Tuesday, religious-right legal activist Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel likened those companies to those who cooperated with the Nazis in Germany during World War II and accused them of treating their employees like “slave labor.”

“These employers say they will give money to the mothers in order for the mothers to kill their children so you won’t miss any time off from work rather than give you time off from work, which is what’s required by federal law,” Staver said. “They don’t want to give you the time to be a mother. They don’t want you to be away from the place of work. They would rather kill your children—pay you to do so—so you could jump back into the workplace and you can go through their eight-hour day or however long they’re going put you at the at the wheel so that they can make a profit.”

“That’s the despicable nature of what’s happening,” he continued. “Women and others across the country ought to just really cry out and say, ‘You despicable companies!  You’re paying to kill the children of these mothers so that you can continue their slave labor and continue your profits off of them.”

“These companies and the states that go down this road, they will not be blessed,” Staver warned. “They will ultimately be complicit with the shedding of innocent blood, and we’ll look back on those companies just like we look back on some of the things that happened during Nazi Germany and say, ‘Shame on you. How in the world did this ever happen?’”

This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

 

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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

‘Lied’: Gorsuch Blasted After Photos Expose His Claims in High School Coach Praying Case Are a ‘Flat Out, Knowing Lie’

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1 week ago

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June 27, 2022

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Many people from legal experts to court watchers to journalists to ordinary Americans on social media are criticizing Justice Neil Gorsuch for his majority opinion in a decision siding with a former high school football coach. That coach sued after the school district ordered him to stop praying after every game at the 50-yard line. Justice Gorsuch’s opinion, as many are noticing, appears to be based on facts that are false. Several are accusing Gorsuch of just plain lying.

Justice Gorsuch claimed the coach’s First Amendment rights were violated, and that he was merely engaging in “quiet personal prayer” as he knelt.

Gorsuch uses the word “quiet” 14 times, as The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman notes.

“Joseph Kennedy lost his job as a high school football coach because he knelt at midfield after games to offer a quiet prayer of thanks,” Justice Gorsuch writes as he begins his majority opinion. “Mr. Kennedy prayed during a period when school employees were free to speak with a friend, call for a reservation at a restaurant, check email, or attend to other personal matters. He offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied. Still, the Bremerton School District disciplined him anyway. It did so because it thought anything less could lead a reasonable observer to conclude (mistakenly) that it endorsed Mr. Kennedy’s religious beliefs. That reasoning was misguided.”

“The contested exercise here does not involve leading prayers with the team,” Gorsuch continues (despite photos that appear to suggest otherwise), “the District disciplined Mr. Kennedy only for his decision to persist in praying quietly without his students after three games in October 2015.”

These are the photos of Coach Kennedy that Justice Sonia Sotomayor included in her dissent:

“They aren’t even trying to use reason anymore,” former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade laments:

And Vox’s Ian Millhiser makes clear what just happened: “The Supreme Court hands the religious right a big victory by lying about the facts of a case.”

Calling the decision “a big victory for the religious right,” Millhiser writes that’s “only because Gorsuch misrepresents the facts of the case.”

On Twitter Millhiser adds that Gorsuch’s own opinion debunks his own opinion:

Don Moynihan, a professor at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy:

Here’s noted political scientist Norman Ornstein:

Others also felt it necessary to correct the facts in the case:

 

 

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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

Watch: Full 11 Minute Documentary Video of Insurrection Shown by Jan. 6 Committee in Primetime Hearing

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4 weeks ago

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June 9, 2022

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The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack showed to America as part of its first primetime hearing an eleven-minute video from British documentary filmmaker Nick Quested.

Quested “was embedded with the Proud Boys for a significant period of time leading up to January 6 and is considered a firsthand fact witness because of the amount of time he spent with the group,” CNN has reported.

News organization The Recount posted Quisted’s documentary to YouTube (embedded below.) They call it “shocking footage from the Capitol insurrection,” and note the “final 20 seconds are chilling.”

Those final seconds, it’s important to note, include a shot of a Trump flag and a Christian flag (screenshot above). The insurrection, as Rolling Stone and other groups have stated, is tied to the far Christian right.

Watch:

Final 20 seconds:

UPDATE:
The Committee posted the video to Twitter. This appears to be slightly shorter:

 

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