Issues: First Amendment Issues

Rep. Foxx Invokes Holocaust In Talk On ‘Eroding’ Religious Freedom

video •

During an October 20, 2012, Stand Up For Religious Freedom Rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said:

FOXX: We are allowing our freedoms to be eroded a little at a time. We now have very clearly a position that wants to take our most basic freedom away from us. If we allow that to happen we are literally cooked, because the rest of the freedoms will go away also. So we’ve got to stand up for it, we have got to make sure that we do the right things. I have often made this little speech on the floor of the house because I feel so strongly about this and I have for a long time. There’s another way to consider the significance of the time we’re in, and you might be able to convince some unbelievers by using the words of German pastor Martin Niemoller, and again, many of you will know this. “First they came for the socialists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.” Folks, that’s where we are. That is where we are. So we have to speak up for our fellow Americans, those who may not understand the significance of the situation that we’re in. We want our children and grandchildren to enjoy a free America that continues to protect the rights of conscience. And it is up to us to make sure that that is the country that we leave to our posterity. If we allow the freedom of religion to be undermined then all the rest of our freedoms are gone.

Values Voters Summit Speakers Warn Of “Sexual Anarchy,” Sharia, And Hitler-Like Policies

This weekend, social conservatives are gathering in Washington, DC for the annual Values Voters Summit hosted by the Family Research Council. The event will feature speeches by conservative lawmakers, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, as well as prominent leaders in the social conservative movement. People for the American Way put together a helpful primer on several controversial speakers who will take the stage. Here are just some of the extreme views that will be represented.

Tony Perkins, Family Research Council

Perkins: “It’s Disgusting” That Obama Supports Telling Kids With A “Perversion” That “It’s Okay To Be Immoral.” According to a letter from Tony Perkins: “The videos are titled ‘It Gets Better.’ They are aimed at persuading kids that although they’ll face struggles and perhaps bullying for ‘coming out’ as homosexual (or transgendered or some other perversion), life will get better. President Obama, Michelle Obama, Vice President Biden, and many White House staffers recorded and posted ‘It Gets Better’ videos on the first-ever White House web page devoted exclusively to the so-called LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) ‘community.’ Can you imagine George Washington, Ronald Reagan, or any other president telling school children that it’s okay to be immoral and that they’ll eventually feel better about it? It’s disgusting. And it’s part of a concerted effort to persuade kids that homosexuality is okay and actually to recruit them into that ‘lifestyle.’” [Perkins Letter via RightWingWatch.org, 8/18/11]

Perkins: Lawmakers Who Vote To Repeal DADT Will Have “The Blood Of Innocent Soldiers On Their Hands.” From Tony Perkins’ “Washington Update” on December 15, 2010: “How many brave men and women are liberals willing to sacrifice so that homosexuals can flaunt their lifestyle? The only reason for changing the present policy is if it would help the military accomplish its mission. So far, no one has produced a single reason how it would. Until then, the Senate has to ask itself: Do they want the blood of innocent soldiers on their hands just to appease the political base of Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)? If they can live with that, then they’re unlike any human beings I’ve ever met.” [Tony Perkins’ Washington Update via Archive.org, 12/15/10]

Read more after the jump.

FRC’s Perkins Compares “Religious Freedom” Issue To Hurricane Isaac

video •

On August 29, the Media Research Center‘s CNSNews.com interviewed Family Research Council president Tony Perkins about “religious freedom” and the presidential election:

PERKINS: I see religious freedom as really a swirling storm, not unlike Isaac that’s been out here in the gulf, that, you know, people are feeliing the effects of, they’re seeing it. The Republican Party platform addresses it. Of course, the president can’t really address it because he is the one who’s facilitating it with his mandate, through his health care, we’ve got more companies filing suit against the administration over the health care mandate. So it is a fundamental issue. People understand, while they may not be solely focused on religious freedom, Americans understand our first freedom is a fundamental freedom upon which our other freedoms rest.

Read more after the jump.

Rep. Gohmert Links Aurora To “Attacks On Judeo-Christian Beliefs”

video •

From the July 20 edition of Heritage Foundation’s “Istook Live!” radio show:

ERNEST ISTOOK (HOST): You know, we were going to talk about other things but since you are a former judge and you dealt with criminal cases on the bench, and I don’t know that you ever had something that was such a crime that is senseless as we seem to be seeing in this theater shooting, with at least a dozen people killed, evidently, in Aurora, Colorado. What– what is your experience with the way that we have too many twisted minds in our society?

REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R-TX): Well, some of us happen to believe that when our founders talked about guarding our virtue and freedom that that was important, you know, whether it’s John Adams saying, ‘Our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people, it’s wholly inadequate to government of any others.’ Ben Franklin: ‘Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom, as nations become corrupt and vicious they have more need of masters.’ I mean it goes on and on. You know, George Washington: ‘Of all the dispositions and habits which are – which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable support.’ We have been at war with the very pillars, the very foundation of this country, and when, you know, what really gets me as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place.

Read more after the jump.

Heritage’s Feulner: Dems Want To Eliminate Independent Churches, Boy Scouts, And Little League

video •

In a June 18 interview with CNSNews.com’s Terry Jeffrey, Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner said:

Well, and one of the things right now, without getting involved in partisan politics, but one of the things that really concerns me is so many people here in Washington, whether it’s Pelosi and Harry Reid and the Congress, or, frankly, whether it’s this president, what they want to do is take all the intermediate institutions between the federal government on one side and the individual on the other side, just eliminate them. They think that — well, this cartoon feature that Obama’s put out on Julia, where Julia starts out with prenatal care in the womb and goes through Head Start and government-subsidized schools and government-subsidized college tuition all the way through her life, always depending on the government. They don’t want — they don’t want independent churches, they don’t want the Boy Scouts or the Girl Scouts, or the local little league to be out there. They want everything to be controlled by the government. And that’s not, that’s not what the American spirit’s really all about, Terry.