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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

Marco Rubio Lashes Out Against Passage of Same-Sex Marriage Bill After His Attempt to Create Special Religious Rights Fails

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U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) lashed out with a Bible verse Wednesday morning, after the Senate passed legislation protecting same-sex and interracial marriage, while rejecting his attempt to infuse special religious rights through an amendment that even some Republicans refused to support.

The Respect for Marriage Act, which passed in a 61-36 vote Tuesday evening, will return to the House for a final vote before heading to President Joe Biden, who promised to sign it into law. Not included in the bill the Senate passed is Senator Rubio’s amendment, which he claimed was necessary despite the clear religious protections included in the legislation.

The bill goes to great lengths to state it will have no impact on current religious liberty protections. Section 6 is actually titled, “No Impact on Religious Liberty and Conscience.”

READ MORE: Republican Attempts to Create Special Religious Rights Fail as Bipartisan Historic Same-Sex Marriage Bill Passes Senate

It states: “Nothing in this Act, or any amendment made by this Act, shall be construed to diminish or abrogate a religious liberty or conscience protection otherwise available to an individual or organization under the Constitution of the United States or Federal law.”

It goes even further.

“Consistent with the First Amendment to the Constitution, nonprofit religious organizations, including churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, nondenominational ministries, interdenominational and ecumenical organizations, mission organizations, faith-based social agencies, religious educational institutions, and nonprofit entities whose principal purpose is the study, practice, or advancement of religion, and any employee of such an organization, shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges for the solemnization or celebration of a marriage,” it reads. “Any refusal under this subsection to provide such services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges shall not create any civil claim or cause of action.”

READ MORE: Marco Rubio Recorded an ‘Emergency Video’ After Pete Buttigieg Responded to His Anti-LGBTQ Attack. It Didn’t Go Well.

Senator Rubio has been actively opposed to the bill from the start. In July he called it a “stupid waste of time,” suggesting he does not think the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn the 2015 Obergefell ruling that made same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional – despite actively calling for the court to do so.

In addition to the video above, Florida Democrats this summer tweeted a video of a local news report showing Rubio preaching to campaign supporters that same-sex marriage is “sinful.”

Last week in a press release Sen. Rubio called the bill “the insanity,” and falsely claimed the Respect for Marriage Act does not have religious protections.

“This bill does not protect religious liberty,” Rubio said in a statement last week. “Nuns running orphanages will find themselves in court if it becomes law. That’s outrageous. No faith-based organization will be immune from the insanity. Christian. Jewish. Muslim. Everyone. Removing this private right of action is the only way to truly protect people and organizations of faith.”

His amendment to create additional, special religious protections failed Tuesday evening, as did amendments from Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), and Senator James Lankford (R-OK).

READ MORE: ‘Punditry, Not Leadership’: McConnell Slammed for Refusing to Say if He Would Support Trump in 2024

Sen. Rubio, a frequently vocal opponent of LGBTQ people and their civil rights, has attacked people who opposed Florida Governor DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” legislation as “ridiculous.”

During his failed 2016 White House run Sen. Rubio repeatedly promised he would not run for re-election. He used the Pulse Massacre, one of the worst and deadliest anti-LGBTQ hate crimes, to declare that the LGBTQ community needed him and launched a re-election campaign on the back of those massacred LGBTQ people.

Rubio, who is known for posting passages from the Bible on many mornings, on Wednesday used Christian verse to lash out at the Respect for Marriage Act.

“The law of the LORD is perfect,refreshing the soul. The decree of the LORD is trustworthy,giving wisdom to the simple,” he tweeted.

His tweet did not go over well. While some responded with a simple, “Amen,” others explained to the Senator who took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” that the Christian Bible is not the law of the land.

“The ‘law of the lord’ was deliberately excluded from the US Constitution,” wrote one social media user. “There is only one law in the US and it’s not the law of the lord, it’s the law of the people.”

READ MORE: RNC Taps Right Wing Extremists to Head Group Designed to Expand GOP Appeal in Wake of Midterm Losses

History professor and author Douglas M. Charles noted Rubio’s tweet had a small typo, and accused him of having a staffer do his work.

“More empty-suitness from the epitome of empty suit senators,” Charles wrote. “These copy-paste BS tweets of his always have a spacing typo, which is how you know a staffer copy-pasted it rather than his being serious about it.”

 

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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

MAGA Christian Nationalist Plans to Mobilize GOP Voters in 17 Counties ‘Where Demonic Strongholds Have Corrupt Control’

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Earlier this year, Christian nationalist MAGA cultist Lance Wallnau announced that he intended to launch a tour heading into the 2024 elections that he claimed will break the “demonic strongholds” in various states that are supposedly preventing Republicans from winning elections.

Through this tour, Wallnau intends to raise up thousands of “patriots,” “grassroots saints,” and “intercessors” in swing states to who will “see the Republican Party shaken to the core” by ensuring that former President Donald Trump is returned to the White House.

During a livestream on his Facebook page last week, Wallnau announced that he has “identified 17 [counties] where demonic strongholds have corrupt control over the voting” and it is these counties that he intends to target.

“We’re going to mobilize,” Wallnau declared. “Before we’re done, the states are going to be mobilized. The awakened saints aren’t just going to be running around doing Facebook posts and incantations and proclamations; we’re actually going to be mobilizing the churches, mobilizing the businesses, mobilizing the legislators, mobilizing the independent media—people just like you guys—we’re going to be mobilizing in the intercessory warriors.”

“Out of 3,143 counties in the United States, we’ve identified 17 where demonic strongholds have corrupt control over the voting and over the machinery,” he continued. “We’re actually going to focus our precinct strategy on those 17 counties. We’re going to go with the [revival] tent, we’re going to go with signs, wonders, miracles, deliverance, Holy Ghost anointing, and the fire of God into seven swing states, hitting 17 counties.”

Wallnau has not yet revealed precisely which counties he plans to target, but he did post a chart on his Twitter page recently laying out 14 counties that he claims “will determine the future of America in 2024.”

Wallnau is an avowed Christian nationalist who was treated as an insider by the Trump White House and who has used his potion of influence to relentlessly promote Seven Mountains Dominionism, a theology connected to right-wing political ideology that teaches that Christians are to “do whatever is necessary” to take control of the seven main “mountains” that shape our culture—education, government, media, business, arts and entertainment, family, and religion—in order to implement the will of God throughout the nation and the world.

 

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

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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

DeSantis Tells Evangelicals He Wants to ‘Improve’ Supreme Court So Justices Reflect ‘Gold Standard’ of Clarence Thomas

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Speaking before a welcoming crowd of national evangelical broadcasters one Tuesday, Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis declared Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is the “gold standard for jurisprudence” and the next president could have the opportunity to create a 7-2 conservative majority that would last for a quarter century.

DeSantis, who will formally announce his 2024 presidential run on Wednesday with Twitter owner Elon Musk, appeared to be perfecting his stump speech as he delivered his 30-minute remarks before the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, which just happened to be hosting its 2023 annual convention in Orlando.

Merely hinting at his impending presidential candidacy announcement, DeSantis at one point in his lengthy speech said, “the U.S. Supreme Court with some of the recent appointments is in a much better spot than it’s been in a long time. But I think if you look over, you know, the next two presidential terms, there is a good chance that you could be called upon to seek replacements for Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Samuel Alito, and the issue with that is you can’t really do better than those two. They are the gold standard for jurisprudence.”

Justices Thomas and Alito are seen as the most far-right extremists on the Supreme Court today. Justice Thomas is at the center of what many legal experts see as a two-decade old corruption scandal involving possibly millions of dollars.

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene Slammed for Paying $100,000 for Kevin McCarthy’s Cherry Chapstick as US ‘Teeters on Default’

“And so you got to make sure that we’re appointing people who are going to be as close to that standard as possible,” he declared. “If you replace a Clarence Thomas with somebody like a [John] Roberts or somebody like that, then you’re going to actually see the court move to the left. And you can’t do that. I also think if you, if you look over those eight years, you very well could be called upon to replace Chief Justice John Roberts, and perhaps even someone like Justice Sotomayor.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor is rated the most left-leaning of all the current Supreme Court Justices. She is 68.

“So it is possible that in those eight years, we’d have the opportunity to fortify justices Scalia [sic] and Thomas Alito, and in Thomas, as well as actually make improvements with those others and if you were able to do that, you would have a seven to two conservative majority on the Supreme Court that would last a quarter-century. So this is big stuff very important that that that gets done right.

RELATED: ‘Could Shoot Somebody on Fifth Avenue’: Clarence Thomas’ Corruption Is Indefensible. Here’s Who’s Defending Him.

Watch DeSantis’ speech below or at this link (video begins at 11:48 mark).

 

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RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

‘Cult’: Some of the Most ‘Shocking’ Things Producers Discovered for New Duggar Documentary

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The latest installment of the Duggar family’s life story is about to be screened in an Amazon documentary, coming two years after family member Josh Duggar was found guilty of possession of child pornography.

As he serves more than 12 years in prison, “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets” walks through the issues that stemmed from Josh and the links the family – made famous in the TLC reality series“19 Kids and Counting” – has to a radical religious sect that People Magazine characterized as “concerning.

The documentary outlines the controversial Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) church and the ways in which the church shaped the family’s decisions and behavior.

“There are so many thousands of families that have been hurt by this and have not had a voice, not for lack of trying, for many, many, many years,” said Olivia Crist, one of the executive producers. “I mean, hope, the takeaway is really hearing the survivors, hearing what they’ve been through. And then, I think also for people still in, trapped in a fundamentalist or IBLP group, that hopefully this is a chance for them to say, ‘Hey, it is possible to get out and that they’re not alone.'”

“Josh Duggar is really the tip of the iceberg in this group,” she confessed in the documentary.

Prior to Josh’s arrest, he confessed to molesting young girls. Among those were his sisters Jill Duggar Dillary and Jessa Duggar Seewald.

Crist revealed that Josh grew up “in a system that is inherently abusive and [has a] lack of sex education.” That kind of environment, she explained, “breeds abuse” by blocking children from any other adults in their lives.

“I think throughout the show, we see that in so many different areas,” she told People. “And systems like this, that’s, unfortunately, how they’re set up with this authoritarian [notion of] ‘men have all the control and women and children have to be submissive to that control’ — I think that is just a recipe for absolute disaster.”

In March, Jinger (Duggar) Vuolo released a tell-all book about the “darker side” of growing up in the family and the church. She described it as an “unhealthy version” of Christianity.

“I was just so crippled with fear, and I didn’t know why,” she told The New York Times in an interview.

Amy (Duggar) King similarly has attacked her aunt and uncle for protecting their son Josh, despite knowing he was a predator.

“I don’t think anyone would make the mistake of assuming I support my cousin,” Amy wrote to People in May 2022. “I’m struggling to even find the words to express how angry I am. I’m angry at my cousin. I am deeply disappointed in him as a person. … But let me tell you I am furious at the family that looked the other way and still today, refuse to hold him accountable.”

Crist also revealed Jill “was hesitant” to tell her story. “I won’t speak for her fully on that. But yes, I think at the end of the day we’re just really honored and humbled that they trusted us with their stories.”

Calling it a “cult,” Crist said that the documentary goes into a lot of abuse that happens under the guise of a church. She noted that they researched just “how far and wide the IBLP ideology went.”

“It went into our police system. It went into the military. And I think also, just how far and wide, like I said, the ideology spread,” she said. “You can speak to a family who is part of IBLP Australia or part of IBLP and live in Tennessee and you’re going to see the same exact thing happen in terms of really just this pandemic of abuse that Gothard’s teachings inhabit.”

Another executive producer, Julia Willoughby Nason, said she found it “shocking” while listening “to survivor stories.” Talking to People, she thinks “the far-reaching quality of this ideology was extremely shocking to me, especially how it’s so ingrained in our modern-day culture present day with the political stakes of our human rights at play here.”

“I feel like being a woman in this culture, whether I’m coming from a place of a high control system as IBLP or coming from not that place, just inherently being a woman, I could identify with the themes of abuse and trauma that we’re going through these people’s lifelines,” she added.

There were so many things that they discovered that they had to start editing. It’s a four-part series, but she explained the IBLP has been around since the 1960s, and there’s room for future episodes.

“There’s certainly a lot more we could say,” Crist explained. “And I think, too, where we land, the last episode is a jumping-off point for this larger political conversation, is also something that is of interest of further exploring.”

Nason isn’t merely an EP on the project, her documentaries frequently focus on “exposing the underbelly of systems of control.” Her work includes a Trayvon Martin documentary and one about the fake concert/scam Fyre, and she’s currently at work on a mini-series about the Murdaugh murders.

“But one of the things I want to highlight is really the educational neglect that happened to a lot of these children is really astonishing. Their education was not sufficient,” Crist also. “There are organizations out there — the Coalition for Responsible Homeschooling is one great one — that are doing really good work to advocate for the rights of children.”

The trailer for the documentary reveals that the Duggars are only the tip of the IBLP plan that involves training them in political engagement, sending their children into the halls of Congress, and to intern in the White House.

 

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