The media is calling the Barack Obama attack on the Catholic Church a “culture war.” Culture War. The words and graphics are everywhere. It was the ABC News headline one morning, “Candidate’s Culture War” is what the graphic said. As if this is some sort of battle between Obama and the Republican candidates. Yes, it is that, but it us much, much more.

This is also a fight much larger than “culture.” Culture is something that defines art and common belief. Culture is something that changes with the times and can actually be defined as you wish. Much of our culture today is not what it was 50, 100, or 200 years ago. What I think is culture, may not be what you think is culture. Yes, there is an “American culture, and I believe I know what it is, but I certainly don’t trust the media or this President (who would probably see me as a “bitter” American who “clings to guns and religion”) to tell me what it is.

The Constitution doesn’t work that way, certainly not the First Amendment which guarantees religious liberty and expression. I would like to think the Constitution would define our culture, but sadly that is not always the case. For the media to call this a “culture war” greatly diminishes its value, this is a battle over the First amendment of the US Constitution. Obama wants the Constitution circumvented to pander to his base, I would hope that most of us would be united with the Catholic Church in wanting it protected.

The new part of the ObamaCare law (that nobody read before they voted on it) says that churches that provide health care and insurance, must also provide contraceptives. The Catholic Church opposes contraception.

“The White House insists this achieves a balanced approach that respects women’s health care and religious liberty, but that’s not how the Republican candidates see it,” said Jake Tapper of ABC this morning. Jake, this does nothing to protect religious liberty. It tries to destroy it.

Thankfully, the presidential hopefuls joined in the fight.

“We must have a president who is willing to protect America’s First right, a right to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience. This is a violation of conscience,” said Mitt Romney

Rick Santorum says Obama has been “hostile to people of faith particularly Christians and specifically Catholics.”

Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul have also been avid opponents to Dear Leaders actions on this. Not just because they want to be seen as opponents, they all believe what he is doing in inherently wrong.

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- This is now beyond stupid and ridiculous. Progressives are now angry at Roland Martin because he was making jokes during the Super Bowl. There is a scary, fascist trend developing here in the United States where people too sensitive to apparently participate in society are holding everyone else responsible for meaningless remarks. It’s victimhood chic.

- Wrong: it’s the third time hyperventilating progressives were willing to freak out for nothing only to go back to their man caves with no scalp.

Dylan Byers notes that criticism of Roland Martin for a comment he made about a Super Bowl commercial — “If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him!” — marks the third time this year that CNN contributors have caused some kind of controversy. The fact that CNN keeps finding itself in this position, he writes, says something about its editorial strategy

It’s a symptom alright, a symptom of progressives so antsy to drum out speech or thought with which they don’t agree that they’re willing to embarrass themselves in an all-out witch hunt.

- A FYI: Making fun of David Beckham’s underwear and soccer is now apparently “gay bashing.” Hands to heaven I’m not making this up. Who in America doesn’t make fun of soccer? Who doesn’t laugh at the giant David Beckham bollocks billboards? What does that have to do with being gay?

- WSJ: Disney, Univision In Talks to Launch 24-Hour English Language News Channel.

- Did the Freepers have enough of the Romney surrogates calling everyone who didn’t vote Romney “bigots?” Seems so. Much in the same way that Obama supporters called conservatives “bigots” for not supporting Obamacare (or just disagreeing with Obama on anything), some Romney supporters borrow language of the left and call those who don’t get in line behind Romney ‘anti-Mormon bigots.’

(I’m sure it’s completely coincidental that I followed a piece about progressives freaking out over Roland Martin with conservatives freaking out at other conservatives over Mitt Romney.)

Evangelicals went for Romney hand over fist in the Florida primary, as well as in Nevada where Mormons did, too. Did you hear non-Romney supporters calling Romney’s Mormon supporters “bigots” for not voting for a Catholic or Evangelical? No. Because that language is best left to progressives. Knock it off, people.

- Now Gingrich wants more debates.

- That WHRRR WHRRR WHRRR sound you hear is the BS meter going off: “Listening to Rachel Maddow is like listening to Walter Cronkite.”

- AOL is trying desperately to get people other than your grandparents and that aunt who sends you videos of cats to care about its services.

Media Research Center:

ABC, CBS and NBC were uninterested in Obama’s Rev. Wright connection, but have gotten religion and are using it to target conservative candidates.

With the 2012 elections less than a year away, the liberal media are attacking President Obama’s potential opponents on a number of fronts, but especially on religion.

ABC, CBS and NBC have used religion in two ways, either painting the field of GOP primary challengers as a God Squad of religious zealots or playing up differences in their faith. Whether they’re letting viewers know that “Rick Perry’s gonna have to answer some questions about the people” he prays with, fretting that God “told Michele Bachmann,” to enter politics, or devoting no less than 40 segments to the question of whether Mormonism is “a cult” or if “Mitt Romney is a Christian,” the networks have repeatedly used faith against the GOP field.

Media preoccupation with the GOP candidates’ faith is the exact opposite of how they covered (or didn’t) candidate Obama’s 20-year attendance at the church of a racist, anti-American pastor who subscribed to “black liberation theology,” or Obama’s half-Muslim heritage.

The Media Research Center’s Culture and Media Institute studied network news reporting on the GOP candidates and religion from Jan. 1-Oct. 31, 2011, and compared it to coverage of the Democratic presidential primary candidates over the same period in 2007. The discrepancy, in both the amount and tone of the coverage, was striking. Network reporters, so disinterested in the beliefs of Obama and his rivals for the 2008 nomination, took every opportunity to inject religion into their coverage of the GOP field. Among CMI’s key findings:

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As I wrote in my piece yesterday, the MSM had absolutely no outrage to summon in defense of Mormons under attack by leftist haters angry over Prop. 8 a couple of years ago.

None.

But when someone Texas Gov. Rick Perry knows calls the Mormon religion a “cult” — oh my, let slip the dogs of war. Politico’s leftist narrative-driver Ben Smith even tried to drag Mike Huckabee into it. In other words, these are The Rules:

1. When someone says something ignorant about Mormons and some GOP star happens to knows the one who spouts said ignorance, under the guise of fighting prejudice, the MSM puts on a Narrative Jamboree! Swing that Republican round and round, call him a bigot and bury him in the ground!

2. When a bunch of leftists practice actual bigotry, intimidation, and witch hunting against Mormons, the MSM pulls this.

All the MSM is doing is using a guilt-by-association club wrapped in phony outrage as a way to tattoo our side as bigots. This isn’t about some sudden moral revelation the MSM finally had about protecting a religion that doesn’t worship the State. This is all about helping Barack Obama. And there will be no better proof of this than the litany of anti-Mormon attacks sure to come should Mitt Romney win the Republican nomination.

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I’m always highly skeptical of Benny Hinn types who claim to preach from a perspective of faith but then do so without ever citing a single line of Scripture – or worse yet, pervert that which is written. That latter proves that even the Devil can talk faith, a lot like Huffington Post’s Diana Butler Bass.

Bass begins her column with the last-distch effort of shaming Governor Scott Walker as a “bad” Christian by listing an unaccountable list of religious types — who I’m sure have no political leanings at all — as a way of saying God stands in opposition to Walker and Walker has no respect for these religious figures. While Walker’s actions have zero to do with his faith and everything to do with the mandate he was given on November 2nd — I’ll be her Huckleberry: let’s use Bass’s context for the sake of this piece.

Yet none of these prayers or sermons has swayed Scott Walker. He has steadfastly stayed on his original course, unfazed by the full weight of Roman Catholic authority or the mainline social justice tradition pressing upon him and urging him toward compromise and change.

Wait – but the left prattles incessantly about separation of church and state? Yes, except in the instances where they think they can prostitute faith for political purpose. The amazing thing about the United States, as evidence by Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists which the left only knows enough of to be comically dangerous, is how and why we are not a nation under the domination of a denomination. Freedom of religion and from religion, in a country blessed by God, a gift you are given regardless.

Walker hasn’t been swayed because the “swaying” occurred on November 2nd when Wisconsin voters went to the polls and voted for exactly what Walker is doing now: saving Wisconsin’s economy. Bass’s beef isn’t with Walker, who is just a representative of what the people wanted, but rather, with the people. The left can’t say that, though, because it deflates their populist narrative, so they focus on polarizing a bogeyman, in this case, Walker.

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Er, holiday card. Received in my inbox last week from Behar’s production team. I almost forgot to share – how could I not?

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Counting down to the fatwa now…

As the left falls all over itself to claim that building the Ground Zero Mega-Mosque is the perfect chance to “showcase” our “Constitutional freedoms” and our religious tolerance, there is another state where religious tolerance is not as noticeably on display as it is for New York’s Muslims. Naturally, in Vermont, it is the religious freedom of Christians being denied. To be sure, the Old Media is not nearly as interested in this story.

Richard and Joan Downing own a hilltop property in Lyndonville, Vermont and on that property they’ve built a family chapel where they host weekly Catholic services for all. Next to the chapel they have also erected a 24-foot-tall cross called the Cross of Dozulé, a cross that the State of Vermont is insisting that they remove. (Visit The Chapel of the Holy Family website)

How does the State of Vermont justify its demands that the family pull down the cross? Vermont officials are citing environmental regulations that give it the power to determine what sort of construction violates the “aesthetics” of Vermont’s scenery.

Now in their seventies, the Downings built their Catholic chapel in 2005 to serve their large extended family. The Downings’ chapel is used by their seven children, three of them adopted, and the 35 foster children they helped raise over the years. The chapel is also open to the general public. (more…)

Having made a handsome living offending Scientologists, Catholics, Evangelicals and just about every ethnic group in the human family, Matt Stone and Trey Parker are writers who make people squirm, laugh and think. Now they’ve gone and outraged yet another religion.

Nearly every interest group, public official and celebrity caught up in the day’s news has been used in South Park’s story line to make viewers laugh.  The show is smart and thought-provoking, the jokes are crude and vulgar, and no one is immune from criticism.

I like South Park because it makes me laugh when I want to just laugh. It also makes me think when I want to just laugh. But truth be told, I, too, have been offended while watching (and laughing) at the show’s depiction of Christians, conservatives or gays in any given episode.

When South Park took on Christianity and mocked Jesus Christ, I found myself a bit uncomfortable and somewhat offended, yet I was still humored.  I’ve even been so outraged by a stereotypical character or plotline that I’ve been moved to openly discuss it, analyze it with friends and bring it up in a later discussion.  That is what makes it unique. Stone’s and Parker’s appeal is their ability to offend everyone.  You know what you are getting when you watch South Park, so if you are upset by vulgar humor, it’s best not to watch it.

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In the past year, we’ve had plenty of opportunities (and reasons) to criticize Jon Stewart’s routine attacks on conservatives, talk radio, Fox News and other opponents of reflexive liberalism.

But not today.

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Put in the difficult position to address his network’s controversial decision to censor a “South Park” episode that mocked Islamic extremists, he deftly put the network’s decision in context, back-handedly criticized it but summed it up with an adroit, “But hey, they write the checks.” (more…)

I’ve had a lot written about me in my area lately: the alterna-weekly ran a piece on me recently called “Patriot Dame,” the local daily ran a piece titled: “St. Louis activist Dana Loesch — Miss Tea Party USA?” Even more, positive and negative, after I went on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews. It was suggested to me that I take a moment to write a first-person account of who I am instead of allowing reporters define me for me. So here goes:

The first time I felt really and truly screwed over by a man was when Bill Clinton was forced to admit that he’d shacked up with Monica Lewinsky not long after he wagged his sausage-finger in the face of America and sternly intoned that he “Did. Not. Have. Sexual. Relations. With. That. Woman.” Everyone who previously entertained the possibility was made to feel ashamed for questioning the Commander-in-Chief, including me, a mere high school freshman at the time.

That was the beginning of the end of my liberally-indoctrinated upbringing, when I first began to see the Democratic party for what they really were: modern day National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and neo-plantation owners. This is validated every time a self-described Democrat-fellating poseur feminist freaks out when I dare to point out that abortion is largely female genocide and true choice lies in which form of birth control to use before intercourse; I also see it when Democrats ignore and suppress the involvement of black conservatives in the tea party movement because it doesn’t jibe with the narrative of a party still populated by Dixiecrats who set filibuster records against the Civil Rights Act. (more…)

In part one, we revealed there are only two kinds of government when you strip away all the smoke and mirrors. Big Government (BG) or Limited Government (LG). Or as we will see in this chapter, “top down” or “bottom up.” The choice you make determines if you support freedom or slavery. Today we’re going to talk about why in more detail.

To start, I need to say that this chapter explores the role of religion as a tool of statecraft. It’s going to discuss how rulers use religion to get what they want. It is not a comment on the merits of any religion, just on how it’s been used.

The earliest form of government is the tribe. The tribe had a chief of some kind who made all the big decisions. The tribe went out and gathered resources and the chief got the pick of the spoils. This system was expanded as civilization grew into villages, towns and cities. There was one person at the top, a ruler. Below them was his support group, a court. And they were the major beneficiaries of whatever wealth the society created. Everyone below them got diminishing returns. This system is still in use today in varying forms. It’s called a top down system. BG systems are all top down no matter how they try to spin it.

In order to motivate the people to agree to this arrangement, the rulers used soldiers to impose their will. But even an army isn’t enough to keep people in line. These rulers needed them to perform well, to be focused on producing goods to benefit the state. So they used the earliest form of ideology: religion. (more…)

The media have an inadequate understanding of religion. This simple fact is corroborated frequently, as mainstream outlets attempt to illustrate stories, explain religious themes and delve deep into faith-based systems.  Unfortunately, most outlets miss the mark entirely, as journalists do not have proper understanding of the constructs through which they are attempting to report.  As a result, the American public suffers a lack of pointed and well-presented information on a subject that stands at the forefront of important global and domestic issues.

Case in point, Christiane Amanpour’s 2007 CNN mini-series entitled, “God’s Warriors.”  The three-part series delved into the world’s three largest religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam.  As is typical of the secular media, an enhanced level of relativism led the Iranian-bred Amanpour (born in London to a Persian family) to equate “extremism” within and among adherents to the three religions.  While each belief system has had moral failures, equating the deaths as a result of radical Islamic fascism to those of contemporary Christianity and Judaism is absurd.  Furthermore, as is the case when journalists attempt to cover religion, Amanpour left out essential details that would have provided a more fair-minded picture. (more…)