Heritage Foundation Expands In DC

From today's money beg:

The Heritage Foundation is vastly expanding our presence in Washington D.C. — the belly of the beast. Our headquarters in the heart of Washington, D.C. is just two city blocks from the Senate offices, three city blocks from the Capitol building, and three city blocks from the House offices. It’s from this base that we will wage a policy war with the Left and the Establishment at very close range. In politics, proximity matters. That’s why our physical presence is key and that’s why expansion is critical to future conservative victories. In short, the Freedom Center will be a beachhead from which we can advance your principles in Washington from inescapably close range. And that’s why a generous donor has offered to match every gift to this campaign, dollar for dollar. That is why we must meet our $1 million goal by August 18 to build The Heritage Foundation Freedom Center—the physical epicenter of the conservative movement in America. These funds will be used to jump-start this critical project to secure our movement’s future. And thanks to a generous Heritage supporter, your gift by August 18 to restore liberty in our nation’s capital will be doubled.

The Heritage Foundation was co-founded in 1973 by late Coors Brewing president Joseph Coors. In January 2013 Jim DeMint resigned from the US Senate to become their president. According to their 2014 financial report, they had over $261 million in assets.

IOWA: Ted Cruz Hires Anti-Gay Nutters Behind National Billboard Campaign

The Guardian reports:

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has chosen a couple who are aiming to put up 1,000 billboards attacking same-sex marriage to be part of his Iowa leadership team. Betty and Richard Odgaard, who lost a civil case in January after refusing to allow a gay couple to marry at their restaurant, have already erected one anti-gay marriage billboard in Oklahoma. They were added to Cruz’s Iowa team on Tuesday. Announcing their appointment, the Cruz campaign described the Odgaards as “courageous conservatives” who will form part of “a strong leadership team to win the Iowa caucuses”. Rick Tyler, a spokesman for Cruz, said the campaign was aware of the couple’s campaign. “The Odgaards signed on with Ted Cruz and they’re supporters of ours, and when the senator heard their story and visited their property he was moved by it,” Tyler said. “So we’re well aware of their situation and their plight.”

Only one of the promised 1000 billboards has been posted.

KENTUCKY: Anti-Gay Clerk Files Religious Discrimination Suit Against Governor

The Liberty Counsel is suing Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear on behalf of renegade county clerk Kim Davis. Via the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Late Tuesday, Davis filed a lawsuit against Beshear in federal district court. She blamed the governor for instructing all 120 of the state's county clerks to comply with this summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage. Beshear's stance left dissenting county clerks vulnerable to lawsuits, including two that she currently faces, filed by groups of her constituents, Davis said. U.S. District Judge David Bunning is expected to rule in these cases in coming days. "The Commonwealth of Kentucky, acting through Governor Beshear, has deprived Davis of her religious-conscience rights guaranteed by the United States and Kentucky constitutions and laws, by insisting that Davis issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples contrary to her conscience, based on her sincerely held religious beliefs," Davis' lawsuit says.

The suit also names the head of the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, which changed the marriage license forms to gender-neutral.

The Liberty Counsel has issued a press release:

“Governor Beshear is unlawfully picking and choosing the conscience-based exemptions to marriage that he deems acceptable,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. When Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway refused to defend Kentucky’s natural marriage laws after “pray[ing] over this decision,” Governor Beshear did not command that he perform his duties, but hired private attorneys to pursue the appeal. “In no uncertain terms, Governor Beshear’s policies and directives are intended to suppress religion—even worse, a particular religious belief,” Liberty Counsel’s complaint points out. “Thus, although Attorney General Conway was given a pass for his conscience about marriage without any threats of repercussion, clerks like Davis are being repeatedly told by their Governor to abandon their religiously informed beliefs or resign.” “Simply put, Governor Beshear is making secularism a litmus test for holding office in Kentucky,” said Mat Staver. “The governor is forcing clerks like Davis to choose between following the precepts of her religion and forfeiting her position, on the one hand, and abandoning one of the precepts of her religion in order to keep her position, on the other,” Staver concluded.

The ruling in the ACLU's suit against Davis is expected next week. (Tipped by JMG reader Allen)

IOWA: Man Tries To Marry Lawnmower

"Congressman Steve King (R - Iowa) said last week that the recent Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage meant you could marry your lawnmower. So I decided to test his theory and see if I could, in fact, wed my lawnmower in Iowa."

(Tipped by JMG reader Blair)

Lively: God Is Punishing America Because Non-Christians Have Religious Freedom

ILLINOIS: Porno Pete LaBarbera To Host Fundraiser For Scott Lively (And Himself)

From the event page:

Scott Lively, founder of Defend the Family International, is the most persecuted pro-family leader in the world on the issue of homosexuality. He will give his thoughts on the new reality of post-Obergefell America (the SCOTUS decision declaring "gay marriage" a supposed Constitutional right). Lively, the author of "The Pink Swastika" and several other books on the homosexual agenda, is the target of a leftist lawsuit accusing him of "Crimes Against Humanity" because he took part in a pro-family seminar opposed to the LGBT agenda in Uganda. Lively will discuss this frivolous lawsuit whose real intent is to silence conservative Christians. You will also hear from AFTAH Founder and President Peter LaBarbera and Grace Gospel pastor John Kirkwood. Refreshments and light snacks will be served. Donations to AFTAH and Lively's organization will be accepted at the event.

The hate soiree will be live-streamed.

HOUSTON: Anti-Gay Pastors Sue Mayor

Via Houston's CBS affiliate:

A group of pastors fighting Houston's equal rights ordinance has filed a lawsuit against Mayor Annise Parker, claiming she tried to deny voters' rights and intimidate clergymen opposing her. The legal action comes at the beginning of what's likely to be a passionate campaign leading up to a referendum on the ordinance in November. "She violated and trampled the voting rights of over a million people in the fourth largest city in the United States of America," said Andy Taylor, the attorney representing the clergymen, at a news conference with his clients. "Are you with me? Can you believe it? Is that what happened?" The clergymen who filed the suit have fought the ordinance from the beginning, focusing on its protections for gay and transgendered people. They're among the leaders of a petition drive that called for a referendum to repeal the ordinance.

Last month the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Houston must either repeal its LGBT rights ordinance or place it to a public vote. Parker has vowed to win at the polls.

RELATED: Next month the above-pictured pastors will take part in an anti-gay forum titled The Texas Response.

Gary Bauer: America Needs Sanctuary Cities For Conservative Christians

"What if there were sanctuary cities for religious conservatives? Imagine if some city in red-state America – perhaps Little Rock, Arkansas; Dallas, Texas; or Bowling Green, Kentucky – decided to be a refuge for unborn children and refused to grant business licenses to abortion clinics. What if a city decided that it was going to be a sanctuary city for the Ten Commandments and displayed them in schools, libraries, and the county courthouse? What if a city decided that it was important for children to have mothers and fathers, declared itself a sanctuary city for traditional marriage, and refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples? Remember when liberals said that illegal immigrants needed to be granted legal status in order to bring them 'out of the shadows' of society? Remember when liberals insisted that gays needed to be given full marriage rights so that they could step out of the closet? Well, these groups may have emerged from the shadows and stepped out of the closet. But those places won’t stay empty for long. Christians, if liberals have their way, will soon fill them." - Gary Bauer, writing for American Thinker.

Lively: It's Time For A Christian Revolution

"How is it that a relatively tiny handful of homosexual activists, themselves representing less than 2% of our population, has managed in the same period of time to establish a reign of homo-fascism in the United States that has turned centuries-old American values upside down and has turned its large Christian plurality (if not majority) into criminals (if they dare to cling to the teachings of the Bible)? Isn’t it true that one man with the flimsiest of plans could utterly defeat the abortion industry and the LGBT agenda in short order — if God backed Him? So why have virtually all our efforts failed? It’s really pretty simple. The American church just doesn’t have God’s favor anymore. The brutal truth is the church has lost the so-called culture war and is now under occupation, like the French under the Nazis, with nothing left to do but organize resistance and plot to overthrow the occupiers through a political revolt." - Crimes against humanity defendant Scott Lively, writing for his blog.

God Launches Desperate Ad Campaign: Please Help Me Stop Those Terrible Gays

Actually this campaign was launched by the martyrs promoted last week by Ted Cruz. Via Glenn Beck's site:

The Görtz Haus Gallery, a one-stop wedding venue, restaurant and flower shop that Betty and Dick Odgaard have run for the past 13 years in Grimes, Iowa, is slated for official closure on July 31, following intense controversy over the Christian owners’ refusal to host a gay wedding. The decision to close their doors follows a contentious legal battle stemming from the Odgaards’ turning away of Lee Stafford and his fiancé Jared Ellars in 2013 — a decision that resulted in a $5,000 settlement payout to the same-sex couple. The Odgaards have since launched God’s Original Design Ministry, a 501(c)(3) organization that will post billboards across the U.S. in an effort to defend traditional marriage as an institution that is comprised of only one man and one woman.

The first billboard went up this week in Oklahoma. The Odgaards say they are planning 999 more.

ALABAMA: SPLC Updates Complaint That Roy Moore Has Violated Judicial Ethics

AL.com reports:

In its filing today, SPLC says Moore has committed new ethics violations by improperly commenting on pending or impending cases in numerous speeches and interviews; by suggesting that Supreme Court precedent need not be followed; and by announcing that he would recuse himself from cases rather than apply precedents with which he disagreed. The SPLC also contends Moore's continued association with the Foundation for Moral Law also violates the Alabama Canon of Judicial Ethics. Moore's wife, Kayla, services as the president of the legal services organization; Moore is listed as president emeritus.

"Justice Moore has been removed from office for unethical actions once before, but it's clear that he hasn't learned his lesson," SPLC President Richard Cohen said in a statement. "It's obviously unethical for him to urge defiance of a United States Supreme Court ruling. He needs to understand that he is a judge, not a preacher." The SPLC complaint states that in a July 7 interview with political activist Randall Terry, Moore indicated that he was in "active" conflict with the federal judiciary over its "horrendous opinion" in the same-sex marriage case and was fighting the same-sex ruling with briefs and speeches.

The SPLC's original complaint, filed in January, contends that Moore is "encouraging lawlessness by attempting to assemble state officials and judges to oppose the federal court system."

BREAKING: Texas Supreme Court Rules Houston Must Repeal LGBT Rights Law Or Place It To Public Vote In November

Via the Houston Chronicle:

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that Houston City Council must repeal the city's equal rights ordinance or place it on the November ballot. The ruling comes three months after a state district judge ruled that opponents of Houston's contentious non-discrimination ordinance passed last year failed to gather enough valid signatures to force a repeal referendum. "We agree with the Relators that the City Secretary certified their petition and thereby invoked the City Council's ministerial duty to reconsider and repeal the ordinance or submit it to popular vote," the Texas Supreme Court wrote in a per curiam opinion. "The legislative power reserved to the people of Houston is not being honored." Houston City Council has 30 days to repeal the ordinance or place it on the November ballot.

Stand by for celebrations from the usual haters.

RELATED: LGBT rights laws similar to Houston's already exist in other major Texas municipalities including Austin, Brownsville, Dallas, Dallas County, Fort Worth, El Paso, Plano, San Antonio, Waco, and Walker County.

Robertson: Obama Should Listen To His "Fellow Africans" And Ban Homosexuality

One Million Moms Needs A Million Dollars Because Everything Is Just So Horrible

"I know that many are discouraged because of the recent Supreme Court ruling but now is not the time for conservative Christians to retreat from the cultural battlefield. We must stand up for our religious liberties. We need to stand up now, more than ever before. For years, your voice - the voice of conservative Christian America - has not been heard by those in power in our nation’s capital. But we have an opportunity to change that, and that’s why I'm emailing you today. The challenge: AFA has already invested $1 million toward putting our AFR Talk signal on the air in the area west of the Potomac. By the time the project is complete, we will have spent another $1 million. AFR Talk needs to be on the air by January, 2016, because the upcoming national election will really start ramping up around that time. So the amount of money we need now is $1 million.  I trust that you'll give your whole-hearted support to this campaign, which I believe is our best effort to hand off to our children and grandchildren a nation whose culture is guided by the principles and values of the Bible. The secular culture's war against all things Christian, including life and marriage, will only spread and get worse as we are pushed even further out of the mainstream." - One Million Moms head Monica Cole, via email.

Desperation Move By Janet Porter

Via Right Wing Watch:

Faith 2 Action's Janet Porter is currently leading an effort to pressure Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine "to file a Motion to Rehear Obergefell v. Hodges" with the Supreme Court, so that the recently decided gay marriage case can be reargued, this time without the participation of Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom Porter insists must recuse themselves. The window for filing such a motion closes tomorrow and having received no support from DeWine, Porter is now getting increasingly desperate and has expanded her call to the attorneys general of Michigan, Tennessee, and Kentucky, sending out an email today warning that they will be responsible when "Christianity is criminalized" and Christians are "carted off to jail" because they failed to get the gay marriage decision overturned

See the full crazy rant here.

Stop Silencing Ryan Anderson!

Two days ago Heritage Foundation spokesman Ryan Anderson declared victory over the review "trolls" at Amazon when his new anti-gay book hit #1 in a niche category nobody had ever heard of. But that victory was apparently empty boasting as today the Heritage Foundation itself published a furious reaction to those negative reviews in an article which includes screencaps of comments made here on JMG. The Heritage Foundation and Anderson are particularly furious about one Amazon review which includes a photo from a concentration camp.

We might take Anderson's complaint about the Holocaust photo seriously if he had ever once spoken up about the many, many, many times his conservative colleagues used Nazi imagery and phrases to characterize the LGBT civil rights movement. Visit Breitbart, World Net Daily, BarbWire or virtually any other far right-wing site and you'll find stories illustrated with the rainbow flag overlaid with a swastika, typically with a headline that includes the words "Gaystapo" and "homofascist."  Until Ryan Anderson calls out those websites and writers by name, we'll find it very hard to summon any sympathy for his outrage over anonymous Amazon reviews.

Evil Alabama Mother Still Won't Let Dead Son's Husband Have His Estate

Remember Patricia Fancher, the evil Alabama mother who hired the Foundation For Moral Law to petition SCOTUS to keep her former son-in-law, Paul Hard, from inheriting his dead husband's estate? Despite the Obergefell ruling, she is still fighting. From the FML's executive director Matthew Kidd:

"The issue is not whether someone may marry a member of the same sex today. The issue is whether a court may or should look back four years and recognize a marriage that was not legally valid. Of course, if the marriage is recognized it will only cause further economic harm to a family which has already lost one its own. And if recognized, this man will be awarded an entire spousal share of the wrongful death proceeds which would be unjust even under normal circumstances considering the two were 'married' less than 3 months."

From FML president Kayla Moore, wife of Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore:

"It is outrageous that five unelected lawyers on the U.S. Supreme Court think they can invalidate a constitutional amendment adopted by 81% of Alabama voters in 2006, on the flimsy ground that violates a so-called 'right' found nowhere in the Constitution. It adds insult to injury to contend that this so-called 'right' should be applied retroactively to matters that should have been settled long ago."

Back in November 2014 the Social Security Administration advised Paul Hard that since he and his late husband were not married "under the laws of Alabama," he is not eligible for federal death benefits. In February 2015, when same-sex marriage first became legal in Alabama, Paul Hard was granted an amended death certificate declaring him to have been the legal spouse of his late husband. That's when Hard's evil former mother-in-law employed the FML in an attempt to thwart Hard's receipt of his share of the settlement in a wrongful death suit filed following his late husband's car accident. According to yesterday's press release, the FML is now claiming that Obergefell does not retroactively apply to unsettled legal actions. Not incidentally, the FML openly advocates for replacing the government of the United States with a Christian theocracy ruled by "biblical law."

Franklin Graham: Liberals Are Stealing "Husband & Wife" From Christians

"Where will the assault on biblical marriage end? Now liberal politicians in California want to ban the words 'husband' and 'wife' from being used in federal law. They say these are 'gendered terms' that discriminate against homosexuals. You’re absolutely right they are gendered terms—because marriage was created to be gendered! The One who created marriage defined it as between a man and a woman. They have already succeeded in deleting husband and wife from California law last year, now they want to take it to the national level. This is shameful! Call your representatives in Congress and the Senate to let them know that you oppose the 'Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act.' Many wedding ceremonies include the familiar line, 'Speak now or forever hold your peace' – Well we’ve got to speak now!" - Franklin Graham, ranting about the proposed change to "spouse" on federal documents.

AFA Radio Host Bryan Fischer Tweets Link To Notorious White Supremacists Group

Yesterday Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson busted hate group leader Bryan Fischer for tweeting out a link to the infamous white supremacists group New Century. Fischer then deleted the tweet and denied having sent it. And as it turns out, the stats Fischer posted are completely false. Hit the link for more. From the SPLC:

Founded by Jared Taylor in 1990, the New Century Foundation is a self-styled think tank that promotes pseudo-scientific studies and research that purport to show the inferiority of blacks to whites — although in hifalutin language that avoids open racial slurs and attempts to portray itself as serious scholarship. It is best known for its American Renaissance magazine and website, which regularly feature proponents of eugenics and blatant anti-black racists. The foundation also sponsors American Renaissance conferences every other year where racist "intellectuals" rub shoulders with Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists.

Scott Walker: God Told Me To Run For President And Stop Gay Marriage

"My relationship with God drives every major decision in my life. Each day I pray and then take time to read from the Bible and from a devotional named Jesus Calling. As you can imagine, the months leading up to my announcement that I would run for President of the United States were filled with a lot of prayer and soul searching. Here’s why: I needed to be certain that running was God’s calling -- not just man’s calling. I am certain: This is God’s plan for me and I am humbled to be a candidate for President of the United States.

"Our conservative values were handed a big blow with the recent Supreme Court ruling. Let me be very clear: this decision was a grave mistake. Five unelected judges took it upon themselves to take that responsibility away from the states and redefine the institution of marriage. In 2006, I voted to amend my state constitution to protect the institution of marriage because I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. I believe that the states have the right to define marriage. To protect this right, I support an amendment to the United States Constitution to reaffirm the ability of the states to continue to define marriage." - Scott Walker, in a money beg emailed to supporters today.