Covidiot Fundie Hucksters To Defy Health Orders

Demonstrating that their business is the business of fleecing their flocks, a collection of California right-wing preachers are planning to defy their State's social distancing orders starting May 31. The network, calling themselves Church United, is supported by the far-right Family Research Council and encourages the weakening of the Constitutional provision against the establishment of a state religion.

California's Governor Gavin Newsome did not include California's churches in the phase 1 reopening that began on May 8, saying last week:

“Congregations of people from far and wide coming together in a closed space at a large scale remains a point of concern and anxiety for us. We are working on guidelines for physical distancing and working with faith leaders talking about unique conditions in their own facilities. Nothing is etched in stone.”

One of the pentecostal hucksters leading the COVID charge is Jack Hibbs, who believes that May 31 is a good time to spread the virus because it's Pentecost, which commemorates "the day in which the Bible says the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles of Jesus of Nazareth." Hibbs is also saying the date was "deposited in my head" a few weeks ago, perhaps after an injection of Clorox.

Hibbs is assisted in his holy hucksterism by an "ex-gay" preacher (riiight!) by the name of Jim Domen. Domen also has an expansive view of the civil authority of churches:

“The church transcends the governments of this world and the politics of this world because the church is a living, breathing, divine institution. We have to remember that no matter where we might live in the world, under what government, those governments will eventually fail. The Bible makes it clear; Jesus will come and establish His kingdom.”

It won't surprise you that both Hibbs and Domen have a decidedly perverse Golden Calf to inspire them:

"Like Hibbs, Domen is a huge fan of President Donald Trump and sees a divine hand at work. [Author Katherine] Stewart quotes Domen saying, 'I believe it’s also divine that we are powering up Church United at the same time that America is under new leadership.'” 

So come, ye sheep, pack their churches and embrace one another. You may not believe in what Darwin taught, but natural selection will come for you.

(photo: Hibbs' Calvary Chapel Chino Hills Church will be a virus petri dish soon. Julie Arellanes)

Right-Wing Fundie: We're Today's 1930s Jews

With stay-at-home orders beginning to crack in states under Trumpist rule, political right-wing fundies still can't stop violating common sense social distancing guidelines by packing into the petri dishes they call churches.

The grievance goblins of the Bible banging set are actually, despicably comparing the life-saving guidelines that they refrain from packed church gatherings to the persecution of Jews in Germany. One such homicidal clown, Mat "Lawd 'n Staver" Staver, went on right-wing hate radio to spread the grievance gospel to the aggrieved masses:

"On Todd Starnes’ radio show Wednesday, Mat Staver, founder and chairman of religious-right legal group Liberty Counsel, compared the plight of Christians in America facing enforcement of social distancing restrictions to the kinds of treatment faced by Jews in Nazi Germany.

Liberty Counsel is making the most of the COVID-19 pandemic to portray itself as a defender of embattled religious liberty and push the group’s narrative that Christians in America are facing unprecedented persecution—a narrative that also happens to be one of President Donald Trump’s main tactics for motivating and turning out conservative evangelical voters for his reelection campaign. [snip] 

And Staver made what certainly seems to be a comparison to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews, though he did not use those exact words:

'So, it is absolutely—I mean, it’s a targeting. It is, you know, I don’t want to be too melodramatic, but I’m telling you what. You know, this happened before in history. We’ve seen people being targeted, that you are being targeted with a particular symbol that you have to wear. And then so you get targeted with your business, you get terminated from your job, and eventually you get ghettoized.'" (our emphasis)

Yes, pretty soon fundies will be forced to wear crucifixes around their necks and.....oh, wait.

As the article notes, Staver's outfit is defending Florida's virus-spreading snake charmer Rodney Howard-Browne, whom we wrote about recently, and is behind the COVID-19 friendly "ReOpen Church" campaign that will certainly open church cemetery plots nationwide.

With their insatiable greed, their lack of empathy for immigrants and the poor, their slavish support of morally vile Donald "Golden Calf" Trump, you can add "COVID-19 death cult" to the right-wing fundie movement's description.

Lunatic Preacher: Christians OK With Dying From Virus

Right-wing mega churches headed by profit-driven "prosperity gospel" charlatans are continuing to encourage their gullible flocks to attend in-person services despite the coronavirus pandemic. Often they're being supported by cynical and corrupt Rethuglican politicians, like Florida's despicable Governor Ron DeSantis, whose state is suffering from his obstinate inaction on the COVID-19 pandemic, who refuses to limit in-person church attendance.

Another grim reaper can be found in Louisiana, one of several COVID-19 hotspots across the country. He's dangerous clown Tony "Under A" Spell, head of the ironically named "Life Tabernacle Church" in Baton Rouge. Spell was charged recently for violating the state's emergency order on large gatherings, which are a recipe for community spread of the virus. Earlier today, he was defiant in promising to continue to violate safe-distancing rules for his unfortunate "church:"

"Tony Spell, leader of Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge, tells TMZ ... he thinks true Christians do not mind dying from COVID-19. He insists that what they fear instead is living in fear. As he puts it, 'People that can prefer tyranny over freedom do not deserve freedom.'

He's also not flinching at medical experts suggesting most of the nation will eventually contract the virus, even if only mildly. Spell's reaction is, 'Let's get on with life.'" (our emphasis)

Yes, we deserve the freedom to die from a pandemic rather than the tyranny of health. Also, "let's get on with life" is his way of saying, "Come, I need your tithes." Elsewhere in his diatribe, Spell says:

"The bible teaches us to be absent from our bodies so we can be present with the Lord. So like any revolutionary, or like any zealot, or like any pure religious person, death looks to them like a welcomed friend.”  (our emphasis)

There's no better expression of the twisted world of right-wing religious nuttery than Spell saying "death" looks like "a welcomed friend" to his congregants whom he's willfully exposed to a contagious, deadly virus.

QOTD: Abortion Ban Boomerang?

"There is plenty of evidence that citizens of conservative states are, to some extent, actually protective of abortion rights. It may not be something they proclaim in their offices, at church, or to pollsters — but their secret beliefs can become quite evident once they enter the voting booth. This should make the legislators who passed the new bills very nervous." (our emphasis) -- Joel Mathis, writing in The Week. We need to make them more than nervous; we need to kick their theocratic asses out of office.

Let's make the massive 2017 Women's March look like an intimate cocktail party from now until the election. And whether it's Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women, or a pro-choice organization of your choosing, give generously. If you think the Bible-thumping lunatics on the right will stop with eliminating reproductive choice, hang on to your birth control because they'll be coming after that next. Count on it.

The Sewer Of The Religious Right

Ever since bigoted theocrat Jerry "The Fallen" Falwell enlisted the evangelical, so-called "Moral Majority" community for the purpose of furthering the Southern Strategy of the Rethuglican / New Confederate Party, "Christian" evangelicals have been loyal, even rabid, foot soldiers for them. Polling suggests that these "moral" people support narcissistic sexual predator Donald "Rump" Trump by comfortable margins (his approval among evangelicals is 66%). His foul-mouthed, bullying, greed-driven persona has not cooled their ardor in the past two years, even as he demonstrates his clumsy cluelessness (two Corinthians, a little wine and cracker, mistaking the communion plate for the collection plate, etc.).

With church attendance falling, and America becoming more and more secular, some believe it's a bargain they made with the devil to hold on to whatever ground they can (school prayer, anti-choice, right-wing judges, etc.). For the cynical leaders of the evangelical movement, it's not even about religion, it's about political power, influence and, most of all, money -- lots of it. They've used religion as a cover for their political movement, not just to gain power but to fleece their members (religious nut and and conspiracy hound Pat Robertson perfected the talibangelist money-sucking model; also disgraced, lecherous talibangelist Jim Bakker, now selling end- of- times slop on his holy roller show).

As a sign of their devoted fanaticism to Rump, even after Rump's despicable response to the Charlottesville neo-Nazi marchers forced him to disband some "advisory" councils, his evangelical advisory board remained staunchly supportive. Proving that the rotten fruit doesn't fall far from the tree, Jerry Falwell, Jr. initially praised Rump's "bold truthful statement about Charlottesville" in a tweet, followed by loony religious bigot Robert Jeffress' racism-is-on-all-sides defense of Rump. The support is apparently mutual: after Jeffress' musing that Satan created Catholicism, White (Supremacist) House propagandist Sarah "Hucksterbee" Sanders dishonestly pleaded ignorance in a press conference on October 24. Ahh, those sulfurous fumes....

Tennessee Republicans Pass Bill Making Bible State's "Official Book"

Ninety- one years after the Scopes trial, the yahoos are still bangin' that Bible:

(AP) Having already made a .50-caliber sniper gun the official state rifle, Tennessee lawmakers on Monday gave final approval to making the Holy Bible the state's official book.

The state Senate voted 19-8 in favor of the bill despite arguments by the state attorney general that the measure conflicts with a provision in the Tennessee Constitution stating that "no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishment or mode of worship."  (our emphasis)

While it's unclear whether Republican Gov. Bill Haslam will sign or veto the bill (he has said he opposes the measure), the language in Tennessee's Constitution is about as clear as it can be.  This is a law, if signed, that will be declared unconstitutional by State courts.

Not surprisingly, Tennessee ranks in the lower third among States in education quality with an overall C-.   Hey, maybe the yahoos can get prayer back in Tennessee schools and they can pray away the mediocrity, or at least get it up to a gentleman's C+.

Trump And The Hypocrisy Of The "Religious" Right

Sarah Posner writes in Religion Dispatches of the fascination for blowhard bigot Donald "Rump" Trump on the "religious" right:

Give Trump credit for one thing: exposing, in plain view, that much of the religious right is driven more by politics than by religion; that is, more by mythology than theology. The usual demands that candidates pledge their fealty to the Bible, to the Christian nation, to the idea that America is in decline because of secularism have been suspended for Trump. That’s befuddling many observers. But the Trump phenomenon exposes how the piety test is often a proxy for other, irreligious motives.

The New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, for one, was shocked by evangelicals whose support of Trump is antithetical to the sacred text they claim is the foundation of our country. As historian Kevin Kruse points out, though, the fact that Ronald Reagan was a divorced non-church-goer who once supported abortion rights didn’t stop evangelicals from supporting him, either.  (our emphasis)

One such prominent pharisee is the smarmy David Brody of CBN.  Ed Kilgore notes Brody's reaction to Rump's handling of Jorge Ramos recently:

That’s what voters want. They want a fighter. They want someone who is going to dish it back to agenda-setting reporters. You see, when it comes to the liberal mainstream media, conservative voters hold a true disdain for the lot of them but they don’t feel they have the power or bully pulpit to fight back against them. Trump is their bully pulpit. Trump is their voice. And that my friends, is the magic of Trump.

"Bully pulpit," indeed (and not in the Teddy Roosevelt sense).  So...  Christ- like!  Also, only the most delusional or meretricious fool (o.k., Brody) would detect a "liberal mainstream media."

The key point Posner makes is that the "religious" right isn't so much motivated by religion or religious precepts.  It's more of the same politics of inchoate grievance (Brody: "they don't feel they have the power or bully pulpit to fight back").  Rump pleases many of them because he is their angry id coming out in the most direct, hateful manner, always punching down at the less fortunate.  Unlike those one would normally expect to be the favorites of the "religious" right like Mike "Huckster" Huckabee, Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum, or even Ben "On Meds?" Carson, the very worldly Rump more satisfyingly broadcasts their hardly Christian, irrational anger over "those people" who are changing the face of America. 

BONUS:  Rump apparently hasn't cracked his self-proclaimed favorite book, the Bible.  To interviewers he says, "The Bible means a lot to me but I don't want to get into specifics."  That dodge spawned a few mocking tweets.