“Family” Member Speaks About Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill

Jim Burroway

January 6th, 2010

Bob Hunter appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show last night on behalf of the secretive conservative Christian group known as The Family, to talk about The Family’s role in the Ugandan proposal to legislate LGBT people out of existence. Most of his statements on Rachel Maddow were a repeat of what he had said earlieron NPR’s Fresh Air on December 22. He claimed that The Family never involved themselves in politics — he was particularly combative on that point on Maddow’s show — and that The Family was working to try to get the Anti-Homosexuality Bill withdrawn. You can see the videos from Rachel Maddow’s show here and here.

As I said, Hunter was particularly combative in insisting that The Family is just a bunch of small groups of people who gather for prayer and Bible study, and doesn’t get involved with politics. He also vigorously slammed Jeff Sharlet’s book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, particularly its cover highlighting “Fundamentalism” at the heart of American power. After the show aired, Sharlet tweeted, “It’s true — I don’t like the cover of The Family. Much of the rest of what Hunter said on Maddow was plain wrong.” Sharlet expanded on what was “plain wrong” in a comment he posted on Warren Throckmorton’s web site:

With respect for Bob\’s good intentions in opposing the bill and bringing a smidgeon of transparency to an organization that has been defined by secrecy for 75 years, there\’s much in his statement on Maddow — which I helped arrange — that is inaccurate. I\’ll have more on this later today, but the most significant point is that the Family/Fellowship has functioned as a political organization ever since it was first formed in the 1930s to elect Arthur Langlie to the office of the Washington governor\’s office. It was political when it threw its muscle behind the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act that undid much of the New Deal … it was political when it sent Senator Chuck Grassley to Somalia (and Uganda) in the early 80s to build U.S. support for the genocidal regime of dictator Siad Barre; and it\’s political now, as it struggles to do damage control over the Uganda issue. Sending someone like Senator Jim Inhofe to meet with foreign leaders — readers should know that goes through the State Department — on the taxpayer\’s tab is political. ..There is a religious function, too; but let\’s lay all the cards on the table.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

robbaydj

January 6th, 2010

Bob Hunter started NICO “National Insurance Consumer Organization” with Ralph Nadar after he left the Carter Administration. He’s a bleeding heart liberal which proves that the “Family” is not conservative. Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Mother Theresa and Bono have all been involved with this group as well as Sister Rose Marie of Northern Uganda who has help thousands of young teenage mothers get back on there feet and won the CNN hero’s award. There is no conspiracy. Everyone trusted an untrue book, without checking the facts. In Uganda Bob Hunter has helped hospitals, and helped the “Lost Children” of Northern Uganda get edjucations and food and shelter. Bob has helped thousands of people who fall victim to big insurance all over this country and has supported Universal Health Care

Burr

January 6th, 2010

It doesn’t matter how liberal he is about everything else if he’s also involved in an organization that promoted something so decidedly illiberal.

Lynn David

January 6th, 2010

You wouldn’t happen to be related to Bob Hunter would you, robbaydj?

I just wonder who if anyone makes political foreign policy for the Family, or if it is simply whatever the individual Family member should determine.

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