Box Turtle Bulletin

Californina Referendum Effort Fails

Opponents of California’s new law which protects students from discrimination, harassment and bullying based on the basis of gender or sexual orientation in the public schools, announced yesterday they failed to collect enough signatures to put a referendum on the ballot to repeal the law:

In an e-mail announcement issued around 2 p.m. yesterday, which coincided with a Sacramento press conference, Karen England, director of the Save Our Kids Campaign, said backers of the referendum had collected over 350,000 signatures – more than 80,000 short of the 434,000 valid signatures needed to force a statewide plebiscite on the law in the June elections.

Last October 12, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 777 into law after an acrimonious campaign among social conservatives to persuade him to veto it. Opponents claimed that the law would “promote homosexuality” and “persecute” Christians.

Three days after Gov. Schwarzenegger signed the law, Capitol Resource Family Impact, a Sacramento group, filed a referendum with the state attorney general’s office. They then formed the Save Our Kids Campaign to collect signatures before the January 10 deadline to put the referendum on the ballot.

Never one to concede defeat, England tried to turn lemon into lemonade:

“For a completely volunteer-driven campaign to obtain this number of signatures is unheard of,” said England in her e-mailed announcement. “We had to overcome incredible difficulties during our signature gathering, including the holidays, and the results are astonishing. While we didn’t reach the threshold of required signatures, we have surprised political observers with the amazing amount of signatures we gathered in just 70 days. It is unheard of for a volunteer-only effort to find this kind of support, especially in a state as large as California.”

England also announced that with the referendum effort dead, they have filed an initiative with the Attorney General’s office and will begin collecting signatures again. Meanwhile, a legal challenge to the law is still before the courts.

A Case For Banning

David Roberts at Ex-Gay Watch has posted something of a manifesto, “A Case for Banning Reparative Therapy.” That is leading to a very good, contentious conversation in the discussion thread.

I can understand how certain specific therapies can be banned (Richard Cohen’s “holding therapy” springs to mind), but I really don’t see how one can ban an attempt to change one’s sexual orientation through simple conversations. That’s what the vast majority of methods consist of: conversations taking place either in therapists offices, prayer groups, pastors living rooms, etc. If one were to attempt to ban all forms of conversion therapy, or even a specific form of therapy such as “reparative” therapy, how would one enforce it? By what mechanism would you impose a gag order on what cannot be talked about in talk therapies?

Nevertheless, David puts together a very strong and logically laid out case for banning it anyway. I don’t see how it could be done, but I do believe some sort of restraint is in order on the more extreme examples. What do you think? Read it and join the discussion.

Today in History: The Gay Men’s Health Crisis

On January 12, 1982, eighty gay men gathered in writer Larry Kramer’s New York apartment to discuss the mysterious “gay cancer” that had been claiming the lives of their friends and lovers. Forced by bureaucratic apathy on the part of city officials, local health authorities, and even Mayor Ed Koch, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) was born.

GMHC would go on to raise money to provide services and assistance for people with HIV/AIDS, including assistance from a large army of volunteers to meet day-to-day needs like cooking, housecleaning, dog-walking, and transportation to medical appointments, as well as help in navigating the apathetic bureaucratic maze. GMHC also distributed material to help educate the general public on the need for safer sex. In these areas, GMHC worked hard to meet the needs which had been, at best, ignored by local and national health authorities and charities (most shockingly, including most faith-based charities). GMHC also battled the overt stigmatization and hostility which grew among well-known public figures, nationally as well as locally.

GMHC quickly established itself as a well-regarded authority for HIV/AIDS education and service. By 1984, the Centers for Disease Control called on GMHC’s help in planning public conferences on AIDS. As the epidemic continued to grow, GMHC expanded its reach by assisting heterosexual men and women, hemophiliacs, intravenous drug users, and children. Today, the GMHC continues its work as one of the nation’s leading non-profit, volunteer-supported AIDS service and educational organizations.

Today In History: A Small New York Times Review

It turns out that the month of January, 1948 was a rather scandalous month for the American Public. On January 5, Sexual Behavior In the Human Male, the first of the the two Kinsey Reports, was released. Then on January 10, Gore Vidal’s novel, The City and the Pillar was published. Gore wrote this novel, his third, at the relatively tender age of twenty-one, and it was the first mainstream novel dealing with homosexuality in its central characters.

I guess both books coming out within the space of less than a week was too much for the New York Times. Sixty years ago today, a small review appeared on its pages:

Presented as the case history of a standard homosexual, this novel adds little that is new to a groaning shelf. Mr. Vidal’s approach is coldly clinical: there is no real attempt to involve the reader’s emotions, as the author sets down Jimmie’s life story–his first experience during his high school days, his life as a cabin boy, a tennis bum, his adventures in Hollywood and points East. Backdrops are gaudy, and Jimmie’s more ardent acquaintances include a picture star (the idol of a million bobby soxers), a fashionable novelist and members of the armed forces. But the over-all picture is as unsensational as it is boring…

Most papers refused to review the novel, but those that did gave it mixed reviews. Perhaps the New York Times was experiencing “Kinsey Fatigue,” but the Washington Post called it “an artistic achievement” and the Atlantic Monthly said it was “a brilliant exposé of subterranean life.” Despite it’s “subterranean” themes and the New York Times’ displeasure, The City and the Pillar nevertheless made it to the best-seller’s list.

Although the gay characters’ portrayals were generally positive, the tone was dark and the ending tragic. It’s been widely reported that the publishers forced Vidal to change the ending to an unhappy one, but Gore himself denies this. But twenty years later, he published the novel again as The City and the Pillar Revised and changed the overall tone to be less dark.

Salt Lake City Mayor Proposes Domestic Partnership Directory

This morning’s Salt Lake City Tribune reports that Ralph Becker, Salt Lake City, Utah’s new mayor, has announced that his very first action as mayor will be to propose a domestic partnership directory that would include same-sex couples:

Becker’s proposed ordinance, unveiled Thursday, bucks the politics in conservative Utah – a state that rewrote its constitution in 2004 to ban gay marriage.

…The registry, likely to win the support of the City Council in Utah’s left-leaning capital, would serve as a catalog of adult residents – gay or otherwise – who can voluntarily add their names as long as they provide proof that they cohabit and rely on one another as dependents.

I’ve driven through Utah, and I’ve found it to be perhaps the most beautiful and friendly states in the union. But I’ve never been to Salt Lake City, so please excuse me if I show my ignorance. Salt Lake City is left-leaning?

At any rate, congratulations to Mayor Becker for taking this step.

My Question For The NBC Democratic Debate

This question is for candidates who support civil unions for gay couples but not full marriage:

Given the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v Board Of Education which declared that separate is inherently unequal, how do you justify your position of giving gay Americans something less than full marriage?

Submit your own question here.

Boston Law Student Apologizes

Stephen Dunne, the law student who filed a lawsuit last June claiming he was unfairly flunked from the Massachusetts bar because he refused to answer a question on gay marriage, has apologized. Dunne had filed the lawsuit claiming that his Catholic beliefs and First Amendment Rights were violated by being forced to answer a “patently offensive and morally repugnant” question on gay marriage and divorce. Dunne withdrew the lawsuit in September after an outcry from the gay community.

According to the Boston Herald, Dunne apologized in a letter to the editor and an interview in the January 3 edition of Boston’s Bay Windows. (Update: The Bay Windows interview and letter are now online.) According to the Herald:

“By filing a misguided federal lawsuit… in respect to the legitimacy of same-sex marriage, I have regrettably perpetuated intolerance and animosity towards my fellow Americans,” Dunne said in his letter. “My religiously based discrimination of gay people was callous and diametrically opposed to America’s core principles of freedom and equality.”

…In Bay Windows, Dunne called his lawsuit a “lashing out” as a result of failing the exam. “…I am particularly regretful of my actions towards those gay and lesbian friends that I befriended and studied alongside during my three years of law school,” he said. “You are all wonderful people and loving parents…”

An Irish immigrant who’s now a U.S. citizen, Dunne said he came to see parallels in the discrimination of gay people and that faced by the Irish when they first came to America.

Author? Author?

So, who really wrote Ron Paul’s newsletters?

Ron Paul released a very brief statement claiming that he was acting something like an absentee landlord with regard to those now-infamous newsletters:

When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.

Former Paul staffer Eric Dondero doesn’t agree:

Let me revise my remarks. I want to be very precise on this.

Lew Rockwell was 80% the Ghost writer for Ron Paul’s Newsletters. Again, key word “Ghost writer.”

I’d say Ron himself authored about half the Newsletter.

He’d have a yellow pad, and every time we traveled by car, he’d break it out while I was driving and scribble on it for hours.

When we got back from Houston, he’d either giver it to his daughter Lori in Clute, or Jean McCiver in Houston. They were the only two who could interpret his hand-writing. If it was Lori, she’d fax the draft to Marc Elam at his office on Fuqua in south Houston.

Jean McCiver worked out of that office directly for Elam.

She was the one who edited and put the Newsletter together. She would gather all the various items faxed from Rockwell, and faxed from Ron to input into the word processing program.

Let me also say, that there were many times Ron and I had to drive directly to the Fuqua office to meet the deadline, to get his “yellow-pad scribblings” to Jean.

Again, while Rockwell had a very heavy hand in the writing of the Newsletter, keep in mind Ron himself wrote a great deal of it as well.

Some caution may be in order. Last May, Eric Dondero announced that he would run against Ron Paul for his Texas Congressional seat, saying “I am the guy that got Ron Paul elected to Congress in 1996. I can and will defeat him in 2008.” Of Dondero, Rep. Paul said, “He’s a disgruntled former employee who was fired.” (Emphasis in the original)

None of this, of course, addresses how such newsletters could go out for at least seventeen years without Ron Paul’s notice or apology. Seventeen years is a hell of a run. And none of Ron Paul’s taking “moral responsibility” happened until long after those newsletters were published.

Whether Dondero is telling the truth or not, Paul’s explanation so far just doesn’t rise to the level of “moral responsibility.” Even if Paul’s explanation were entirely correct, then that means that we would have to believe that he allowed someone to use his name for seventeen years. And yes, I do keep emphasizing that point: Seventeen years! When someone “lends their name” to a cause, it ought to mean something. If it turns out it didn’t really mean anything then, then why should it mean anything now?

A man who doesn’t protect his good name is as bad as whoever who wrote these newsletters. Three short sentences doesn’t even begin to address what went on for nearly two decades. Paul has way more explaining to do.

Hat Tip: Ed Brayton

Update: In my post above, I did not mean to imply that I thought Eric Dondero wasn’t telling the truth. I was pre-emptively pointing out issues which may cause others to suggest that we shouldn’t believe him. I tend to believe him, but my point is that we don’t really have to accept his word. All we have to do is ask why Ron Paul allowed these repugnant opinions to go out under his name for such an incredibly long time. I can’t imagine my name being lent to something without my knowing what was said in my name. Not in a million years. And since I can’t imagine that, I have to assume that Paul knew exactly what was being written — whether he did the writing or someone else.

Today in History: A Priest and Some Sisters

On January 10, 1977, Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore of New York ordained the Rev. Ellen Marie Barrett to the priesthood. Her ordination into the diaconate in December 1975 had gone largely unnoticed. But her priestly ordination was marked by a storm of controversy throughout the Church and the secular press. Rev. Barrett had previously served with James Wickliff as the first co-presidents of Integrity, the LGBT Episcopal organization.

Coincidentally, on this same date in 1980, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence founded a “convent” in San Francisco. Originally a form of camp street theater, the controversial nuns soon took on more serious efforts when they became among the earliest bay-area AIDS charities at a time when few other established churches and organizations deigned to pitch in.

Their work didn’t end there. The Sisters helped organize the first AIDS Candlelight Vigil, and one of the Sisters created the rainbow flag, which is now the defining symbol of the gay rights movement. The sisters have raised more than $1 million in San Francisco alone and have benefited such groups as the Breast Cancer Network, Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic and the Gay Games. The Sisters continue to bring meals to those who can no longer care for themselves, and they fund alternative proms for LGBT youth.

And through it all, they continue to be the favorite targets of many religious-right organizations, many of which still show scant evidence of performing the charitable work that the Sisters do. Ironic, isn’t it?

Update: Okay, I’ve had two historical errors coming from the same source. That source also gave me the wrong date for the Kinsey report. Lesson: Don’t believe everything you read without verifying it from other sources. Which, of course, is why I started this web site to begin with. How embarrassing….

What’s In Ron Paul’s Closet?

James Kirchik at the New Republic has been digging around some of Texas congressman Ron Paul’s old newsletters from the 1990’s. It’s not a pretty sight. The wacky conspiracy theories were entertaining, but comparatively speaking that’s nothing. The true horror is with the atrocious racial bigotry (including full-throated defenses of the old Confederacy and kind words for David Duke), anti-Semitism, and hysterical homophobic rants:

In 1990, one newsletter mentioned a reporter from a gay magazine “who certainly had an axe to grind, and that’s not easy with a limp wrist.” In an item titled, “The Pink House?” the author of a newsletter–again, presumably Paul–complained about President George H.W. Bush’s decision to sign a hate crimes bill and invite “the heads of homosexual lobbying groups to the White House for the ceremony,” adding, “I miss the closet.” “Homosexuals,” it said, “not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.”

…(in 1990), citing a Christian-right fringe publication, an item suggested that “the AIDS patient” should not be allowed to eat in restaurants and that “AIDS can be transmitted by saliva,” which is false. Paul’s newsletters advertised a book, Surviving the AIDS Plague–also based upon the casual-transmission thesis–and defended “parents who worry about sending their healthy kids to school with AIDS victims.” Commenting on a rise in AIDS infections, one newsletter said that “gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense,” adding: “[T]hese men don’t really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners.” Also, “they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick.”

Southrn Baptist minister and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has been questioned extensively about his anti-gay comments, statements which are positively genteel compared to Paul’s. Rev. Huckabee refused to back down. Does Rep. Paul stand by his statements as well?

Update: The New Republic has posted a PDF of one of Ron Paul’s newsetters.

Update: The New Republic has now posted eighteen newsletters, all PDF’s. This isn’t us just taking Jamie’s word for it. True, almost none of these newsletters are actually bylined by Ron Paul. But they all have his name emblazoned across the top.

And this, I think, brings up a very important point. This blog doesn’t carry my name across the top, but as far as I am concerned it might as well. I am responsible for every post that appears in it, even for those few posts that I don’t necessarily agree with. While I don’t always agree with every post, I at least believe they are well reasoned and well written, and I will stand by them.

Ron Paul has tried to escape responsibility for these newsletters by claiming someone else wrote them. That doesn’t wash with me. These eighteen newsletters span from 1978 to 1995! This was not a one time thing.

But more importantly, Ron Paul’s name is emblazoned across the top of these newsletters. If you had a newsletter named after you, would you allow these articles to appear on your behalf? The answer couldn’t be easier: I wouldn’t. I’d have stuff like this killed in a New York minute. And if through some strange machinations the newsletter with my name on it were somehow wrested away from my control and stuff like this were printed under my name, I’d find the biggest, loudest bullhorn I could find to denounce it and everyone associated with it. That’s what responsibility looks like in the real world.

More Evidence that DADT is Dead

Do you ever get the sense that Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell is a walking corpse that just hasn’t noticed that it isn’t breathing?

USA Today tells us that in the three weeks since Army Sgt. Darren Manzella came out on national television he’s heard no indication that he’s being discharged. And other than the ever reliable one woman army against gays, women, and creeping liberalism, Elaine Donnelly, no one seems to care (when you’re down to quoting Elaine, it means no one else is talking).

And Elaine’s crusade may not be going real well.

Army spokesman Paul Boyce says the “policy is public law, and it is being enforced.” It’s not illegal to be gay in the military, he points out, as long as a servicemember keeps quiet.

Quiet like 60 Minutes, I guess.

But the most interesting part of the article was this last bit at the end:

Eugene Fidell of the National Institute of Military Justice, a group of military legal experts, wonders whether the dwindling number of discharges suggests broader implications for the policy. “Is it dying basically for lack of interest?” he asks. “Military managers may be turning a blind eye because it’s a nuisance, and we need these people.”

Sorry Elaine, it looks like you’re pretty much on your own now.

Hutcherson Reboots His Microsoft Project

When last we checked in on this strange saga, Watchmen On the Walls co-founder Ken Hutcherson appeared before a Microsoft shareholders meeting threatening that if they didn’t drop their support for equal treatment of LGBT employees, he’d become their “worst nightmare.” Soon after, we learned that Hutcherson plans to pack Microsoft shareholders with like-minded investors. Today, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Hutcherson has a new financial venture to support this effort:

Hutcherson, joined by some of the country’s most influential Christian leaders, has created a new organization, AGN Financial Network, to finance the effort. The worldwide venture asks people to buy three shares of company stock, and donate one to AGN. Its Web site tells visitors, “You have the power to change the world,” and contains tips on how to open a brokerage account. Among the listed supporters are Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention and religious pundit Gary Bauer.

“We’re not trying to hurt Microsoft or their shareholders, nor are we calling for a boycott of their products,” volunteer spokesman Dennis Sullivan said. “We are trying to get Christians to buy their shares.”

When we first reported on this plan, we did the math on what it would require to take over a $318 billion company. Not an easy did thing to do. The Post-Intelligencer also ran the numbers:

It would be difficult to influence company direction — just to gain a 1 percent stake in Microsoft, about 31 million people would each have to spend $104 to buy three shares. Microsoft has about 9.36 billion outstanding shares, and its largest holder is Chairman Bill Gates, with 858 million shares, or 9 percent of the total. Capital Research and Management Co. follows with nearly 557 million shares, or 6 percent.

Interestingly, Hutcherson thinks that Microsoft should confine its policies to “within its four walls,” and that they should have no voice in public policy whatsoever. Hutcherson also thinks he is exempt from that same principle:

Hutcherson said it’s not Microsoft’s job to influence the public agenda, and that it should be left to others, like him.

“That’s what my job is,” he said. “I’m a pastor.”

Some people seem to think the First Amendment doesn’t apply to everyone.

Rev. Huckabee: “Obey God’s Orders”

Yesterday, we reviewed Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee’s deep connections with two key Christian Reconstructionist figures. We ended that post with a question: What does Huckabee believe?

Well, we know that he says that “The winning worldview will dominate public policy, the laws we make, and every other detail of our existence. We also know that he attributes his standing in the polls as being God’s work. And today, we learn about a sermon he gave at a very small New Hampshire church about being part of God’s army:

“When we become believers, it’s as if we have signed up to be part of God’s Army, to be soldiers for Christ,” Huckabee told the enthusiastic audience.

…”When you give yourself to Christ, some relationships have to go,” he said. “It’s no longer your life; you’ve signed it over.”

Likening service to God to service in the military, Huckabee said “there is suffering in the conditioning for battle” and “you obey the orders.”

No cameras were permitted at the service, which guarantees that this item won’t make the evening news.

Today in History: ACLU Denied Equality for Gays and Lesbians

Today the American Civil Liberties Union is a stalwart champion for equality for the LGBT community. But that wasn’t always the case. On this day in 1957, the ACLU’s Board of directors adopted this statement:

The American Civil Liberties Union is occasionally called upon to defend the civil liberties of homosexuals. It is not within the province of the Union to evaluate the social validity of laws aimed at the suppression or elimination of homosexuals.

That policy statement was published in the March 1957 issue of Civil Liberties: Monthly Publication of the ACLU. Ironically, that statement was placed next to a sidebar marking the 100th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision.

The ACLU would change course some seven years later, thanks largely to the efforts of Washington, D.C. activist Frank Kameny. In November, 1961, in the same month that Kameny helped found the Washington Mattachine Society, he also helped found that city’s chapter of the ACLU. After he persuaded that chapter to support gay rights, the Washington chapter lobbied the national ACLU to rescind their policy. The national ACLU finally acted in 1964, and by the end of the decade ACLU attorneys were on the front lines in defending gays and lesbians in American courts.

Huckabee’s Christian Reconstructionist Ties Run Deep

We reported earlier on Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee’s fundraising event at the home of Houston multimillionaire Steven Hotze, a well-known Christian Reconstructionist. Pastor Rick Scarborough, who also maintains Reconstructionist beliefs, was there as well. Since then, we’ve learned that Huckabee’s ties go far deeper than mere acquaintances and financial backers. He has a history of working very closely with some very well-known Reconstructionists over the years. In this report, we will examine two of Huckabee’s closest Reconstructionist colleagues.

Modern Christian Reconstructionism (sometimes known as Dominionism) was founded by the late R.J. Rushdoony and his son-in-law, Gary North. Rushdoony believed that it was the duty of every Bible-believing Christian to place each and every word of the Bible at the core of that person’s life. According to Rushdoony, this meant that the Bible must necessarily replace all civil laws and constitutions with the Old and New Testaments, including the revival of the death penalty for homosexuality, incest, adultery, lying about one’s virginity, and apostasy or public blasphemy, among a much longer list of biblical crimes. Rushdoony wrote that Democracy is a heresy and “the great love of the failures and cowards of life.”

George Grant
These are core beliefs among several leading figures in Huckabee’s circle. One such prominent figure is George Grant, a well-known Reconstructionist who appeared with Rushdoony in the video, God’s Law and Society. Grant was the co-author for Huckabee’s 1998 book, Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence. That was the book where Huckabee and Grant lumped homosexuality with pedophilia, sadomasochism and necrophilia as “institutionally supported aberrations.”

That line, which Huckabee defended, may well have come from Grant’s 1993 book, Legislating Immorality: The Homosexual Movement Comes Out Of The Closet. In that book, Grant compares homosexuality with pedophilia and bestiality. He also calls for the death penalty for gays, saying “[t]here is no such option for homosexual offenses” except capital punishment.

In 1987 George Grant wrote The Changing Of The Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action, in which he made his call for a theocratic overthrow explicit. On reading these passages, there can be no doubt exactly what Grant is calling for:

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ – to have dominion in the civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.

But it is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice.

It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.

It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.

It is dominion we are after.

World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less.

If Jesus Christ is indeed Lord, as the Bible says, and if our commission is to bring the land into subjection to His Lordship, as the Bible says, then all our activities, all our witnessing, all our preaching, all our craftsmanship, all our stewardship, and all our political action will aim at nothing short of that sacred purpose.

Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land – of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ. It is to reinstitute the authority of God’s Word as supreme over all judgments, over all legislation, over all declarations, constitutions, and confederations. True Christian political action seeks to rein the passions of men and curb the pattern of digression under God’s rule. (pp. 50-51)

Grant has attained considerable influence within broader evangelical circles. He once served as executive director for D. James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries, and he has been a vocal advocate for evangelicals withdrawing their children from public schools. Grant operates several educational organizations in Franklin, Tennessee, including a Christian school, and an adult education center. He is “reluctantly” in the process of developing a home-school curriculum.

Bill Gothard
Another strong Reconstructionist tie can be found in Rev. Huckabee’s longtime relationship with Bill Gothard. Gothard runs an outfit called the Institute In Basic Life Principles. As part of the teachings at his institute, Gothard has espoused some very radical principles. The evangelical non-profit Personal Freedom Outreach, whose mission is to warn fellow evangelicals about pronouncements which are considered heretical from an Evangelical point of view, criticized several very odd aspects of Gothard’s theology:

Take for example Gothard’s “Cabbage Patch” flap. In 1986, he taught that the highly popular Cabbage Patch Dolls were causing strange and destructive behavior in children that could only be alleviated when the dolls were removed or destroyed.

In a letter from his organization, his followers were told by representative Ginger Jones that to enter into a written agreement to love a doll was a violation of the First Commandment. The threat as seen by Gothard was that by adopting a doll, children might not want to raise up their own godly children. Children may “love” dolls as they do other toys but this does not mean they worship them.

Testimonials were included with the above letter about the awful effects of the dolls with no allowance made for other environmental and social factors in the homes. The Cabbage Patch doll became a scapegoat.

If only Gothard’s teachings were limited to children’s toys. Unfortunately, it is just one small and amusing manifestation of Gothard’s extremism. Gothard teaches that all of life’s problems can be traced to poor “character choices.” Those choices result in a large number of societal “ills,” including homosexuality, divorce, contraception, crime — even mental illness. In one video, Gothard claims that there is no such thing as mental illnesses, and everything that we call “mental illness” — including schizophrenia — are the direct result of making poor character choices. Among the many unaccredited “training institutes” that Gothard runs is something called “The Medical Training Institute of America,” which emphasizes “the Biblical mandate to call for the elders of the church for prayer before receiving medical treatment for a serious illness.” He describes the “power of crying out” to cure brain tumors, cancer and infertility.

Gothard insists that families and communities must organize themselves on a strict interpretation of Christian Reconstructionist principles. In addition to Cabbage Patch Dolls, he also forbids dancing, dating, rock music (even Christian rock) and “wrong clothes.” Wives must submit to their husbands, adults must submit to their patriarch (the husband’s father), and couples must discard all forms of birth control. Families should limit their contact with those who are not “saved,” they should lock their misbehaving children into “prayer closets,” and they should home-school their children.

To help families with that last injunction, Gothard maintains a home school curriculum, composed of a series of “wisdom booklets” in which “the Bible is the main textbook” for all subjects in the curriculum, including science and mathematics. Gothard’s most famous home-school alumnus to date is probably Matthew Murray, the “Colorado Shooter” who killed four people in two separate shooting sprees in Arvada and Colorado Springs. The particularly tragic irony is that there is evidence that Matthew Murray may have been suffering from mental illness — he reportedly heard voices, which is often a symptom of some forms of schizophrenia which Gothard dismissed as a mere character flaw.

While little is known about Gothard outside the evangelical movement, he claims to have built a large following of 2.5 million alumni of his 25-hour basic seminar since 1964. Matthew Murray’s parents are reportedly among his alumni. Another alumnus is none other than Rev. Mike Huckabee, who wrote this endorsement of Gothard’s prison program, which was implemented in at least one Arkansas state prison:

As a person who has actually been through the Basic Seminar, I am confident that these are some of the best programs available for instilling character into the lives of people.

Huckabee has also Gothard’s “Character Cities” program, which is a secular front organization which tries to inject Reconstructionist goals into local politics under the radar. So far, 171 cities, 37 counties and 8 states have adopted resolutions. In 1997, the Ocala Star-Banner reported on a meeting Gothard held in Little Rock with members of Huckabee’s administration:

Gothard has described his meeting in Little Rock as the start of something big. He said it laid the groundwork for “the most exciting opportunity I can imagine” to merge the institute’s teachings with government programs. In a letter published on the institute’s Internet site, Gothard said his organization has been asked to “present a plan and contract to restructure ( Arkansas’ ) welfare program, their educational system and their juvenile justice methods.” He also claims that Gov. Huckabee’s aides “have already begun taking steps” to put the proposal into action.

What Does Rev. Huckabee Believe?

It’s hard to know where Huckabee himself stands in all of this since he is coy about addressing how he sees the role of church and state. In his 1997 book, Character Is The Issue: How People With Integrity Can Revolutionize America, Huckabee claimed that he despised “legalism” in the Church as much as liberalism (p. 74). Nevertheless, he casts the struggle between liberalism, which he describes as godless, and his form of Christianity as a political fight in which only one side can emerge victorious:

Here’s the bottom line not just for Arkansas and America, but for the world: one worldview will prevail. Either by numbers or persuasion, one side of this polarized culture will defeat the other in setting public policy. When two irreconcilable views emerge, one is going to dominate. Ours will either be a worldview with humans at the center or with God at the center. Standards of right and wrong are either what we establish as human beings (standards which can be changed to suit us), or they are what God has set in motion since the creation of the world.

… The winning worldview will dominate public policy, the laws we make, and every other detail of our existence. (p. 137)

Huckabee clearly believes that his campaign is a part of “what God has set in motion.” Those beliefs echoed throughout his address to students at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, where he explained why he thought his poll numbers were rising:

There’s only one explanation for it, and it’s not a human one. It’s the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of five thousand people. (Applause and cheers)

And that’s the only way that our campaign could be doing what it’s doing. And I’m not being facetious, nor am I trying to be trite. There literally are thousands of people across this country who are praying that a little will become much, and it has. And it defies all explanation. It has confounded the pundants, and I’m enjoying every minute of their trying to figure it out. And until they look at it from a… just experience beyond human, they’ll never figure it out. And that’s probably just as well. That’s honestly why it’s happening.

Hat tips: Wayne Besen, Cincinnati Beacon

See also:
Rev. Huckabee: “Obey God’s Orders”