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August 17th, 2012
11:40 AM ET
Conservatives see Family Research Council attack as more evidence of what they call war on religionBy Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor Washington (CNN) - For many conservative Christians, this week's Family Research Council shooting that wounded a security guard and that the FBI is investigating as a possible act of domestic terrorism was hardly a one-off attack. Rather, they say the incident is the latest evidence in what they allege is a growing war on religion from the left, an offensive they say extends from the Obama White House down to the liberal grass roots and even foreign governments. “It's easy to brush aside this incident as one act of a crazy man until you consider the past two weeks,” activist Dana Loesch wrote on the conservative site Breitbart.com in a piece titled “A literal war on religion?” Like other conservatives and officials at the Family Research Council, Loesch tied the shooting to recent criticism of Chick-fil-A, the restaurant chain that recently came under attack for remarks its CEO made that appeared to oppose same-sex marriage. CEO Dan Cathy said he supported "the biblical definition of the family unit." Conservatives decried the outspoken opposition to Chick-fil-A - which included some high-profile American mayors saying the restaurant chain wasn’t welcome in their cities - as evidence of the purported war on religion and religious liberty. The suspect in the Family Research Council attack, Floyd Lee Corkins II, was carrying 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches in his backpack - along with a pistol and extra ammunition - and told a security guard, “I don’t like your politics,” before opening fire Wednesday, according to a criminal complaint filed by authorities. “The Family Research Council is affiliated with Chick-Fil-A,” wrote Loesch, who is a CNN contributor, on Breitbart. “Chick-Fil-A came under fire due to the free speech of CEO Dan Cathy by militant anti-Christian and anti-free speech activists.” The American Family Association, a conservative evangelical group, also tied Wednesday's attack to what it said was a broader liberal offensive. "This near-tragic incident marks an alarming turn in our cultural battle over values," the group said in a statement Thursday. "The left’s war on religion and Christianity has now gone from symbolic to literal." For decades, conservatives have alleged a liberal war on religion, dating the effort to the 1963 Supreme Court decision that outlawed state-sanctioned school prayer. Conservatives renewed their argument this year after an Obama administration rule that requires employees to be given free contraception coverage in health insurance plans, even if they work for a Catholic institution. A recent campaign ad from presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney says that "President Obama used his healthcare plan to declare war on religion, forcing religious institutions to go against their faith.” In a press conference Thursday, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins pinned blame for the attack partly on the Southern Poverty Law Center, which had labeled the council a hate group over its pronunciations against homosexuality. While saying the alleged gunman was ultimately responsible, Perkins said that he "was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations hate groups because they disagree with them on public policy." “The cornerstone of our society is freedom of speech and freedom of religion,” Perkins said. “If we lose those, we lose our future.” In an interview with Fox News Channel, Perkins framed the incident as an attack on Christians everywhere. “Terrorism is designed to intimidate, to drive people back and make them fearful,” he said, adding that the incident was designed to scare “the Family Research Council and by extension family values supporters and Christians across the nation.” Liberal groups said efforts to paint the Family Research Council incident as an attack on religion were disingenuous. “Religious Right groups have long equated any criticism of their positions or tactics as attacks on their freedom of speech and religion,” the group People for the American Way said in a post Friday on its “Right Wing Watch” site. “Now they are taking it a step further to say that critics must stop calling out their hateful rhetoric and naming it as such. ... “FRC was not labeled a hate group because of a simple policy disagreement, as FRC's backers would have you believe,” the post continued. “The SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) cited very specific examples of FRC's wildly inflammatory anti-gay language." But Erick Erickson, a conservative blogger and CNN contributor, framed this week's attack as part of a campaign against Christianity that extends past American shores. "Christianity has become an acceptable target for an increasingly secular western world," he wrote in an e-mail message. "In much of Europe and Canada, preaching orthodox Christian tenets about gay lifestyles, etc. can see a preacher punished by the state. "While the left routinely accuses mainstream Christian leaders of intolerance," he continued, "what many Christians see in turn is a secular media and society showing increasingly open hostility toward Christians for believing what secular society considers incorrect values."
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Could the Religioous Right's paranoia possibly be any more obvious?
of course it was nothing more then paranoia huh. Especially with it happening right after the gays all got up in arms over Chick Fil A, with the fact that this crazy gay boy had chick fil a sandwiches and made the remarks he did before it all went down, I would say they have every right to be concerned.
Your right Nathan.
In fact the gays have been consipiring against your preachers for generations.
They just wave their rear ends in front of your pastors, and they go off the deep end trying to get themselves some.
All it would take would be some Aids positive martyrs to sleep around in your clergy, and the war would be over within a week
@Floyd.
No.
actually I do not buy into any of the jesus or god junk, its all a fallacy to me. Now run along with your ignorance
If there is a war on religion, let the record show that religion fired the first shot.
religion has caused the death of more humans than anything else... and christianity is the #1 offender
What about that conservative Nazi that killed a bunch of Sikh's? That's not a war on religion?
Well, that's not a religion that the FRC cares about...
lol well, it's not a war on THEIR religion, so they don't care.
actually blah it had nothing to do with religion but with the color of their skin you ignorant fool.
What makes you say that, you bigot freak.
@Nathan,
the colour of their skin was incidental. At this point we must assume that it was ignorance that killed the Sikhs.
– Igorance that turban wearing is not the calling card of terrorism.
– Ignorance that Sikhs are not Muslims.
– Ignorance that Muslim Americans are not terrorists.
– Ignorance that white-supremacy is evil.
You dare to apolgize for bigotry and hatred. How can you look in the mirror without shame?
show me where I apologized for the guy you weird freak. I was simply making a correction to an ignorant statement fool
Please keep YOUR Religion out of MY Politics...... I base my opinions on history, facts and reality. Faith is for the politically uneducated, needless to say....
What in the world does your comment have to do about this situation? Some lunatic open fired and wounded another person with the intent of killing him and others. REGARDLESS of the policys or politics, this is just not acceptable actions.
War on religion?
Let's see we have:
Bibles in every hotel room
Televangelists 24/7
God on our money
Discounts for insurance if you're christian
God in The Pledge of Allegance
Radiovangelists 24/7
Prayer before public events
Billboards along the highway advertising VBS and "Repent or Go To He11"
Churches every 6 blocks in cities over 100,000
God in the national anthem
Federally recognized christian holiday
Christian bookstore in every twon over 12,000
War on religion? More like christian based fascism to me.
im surprised this guy didn't run in and try to smack them with his d!ldo
Here I will make it simple since I see many on here condoning what this man did. I hope there is an uptick of violent attacks of gays all over the country.
Hopefully this will unleash a full scale war between the gays and the straights. Bring it on ladies, we got something for you.
Way to take the high road, man.
its ok Daniel, I get down and dirty with the best of them.
Well, I rather believe that's NOT what Jesus would do. Your life, though.
I dont believe in Jesus, Daniel so your statement is irrelevant to me
Nathan I think you may find the nerds will be the key
Poison gas is FAR more efficient than bullets
Four nerds, five grand and six days make two or three passable nuclear "dirty" bombs that would shake this nation to its core.
Throw in a bot net attack against some commodities markets and a silver bullet to knock out a few million cable boxes, and we could have the Jeebus Jocks bending over for Satan himself.
Throw in some aerosol dispersion of some botulinum toxin at a few football games and a cell phone virus, and we could probably have a new world order within a week.
FRCclaims that there is a War on religions, but what they really means is they only care about Christian religion no ALL religions, right?
Bingo.
I don't consider it a war on anything, but I do find that it shows just how intolerant the gays are and how when they don't get their way they are prone to acts of violence.
Prone to acts of violence? Please show where other attacks by GLBT individuals against bigots have occurred?
How many names would you like me to present to you son.
I'll take that list of names, 'dad.' Put up or shut up.
Funny- absolutely nobody has suggested that the shooter was himself gay.
I feel that liberal group protests tend to get more violent than conservative group protests, but a single conservative protester is more violent than a single liberal protester.
Jeffrey Dahmer
Andrew Cunanan
Gilles de Rais
Luis Alfredo Garavito
Randy Steven Kraft
Michael Swango
Andrei Chikatilo
Fritz Haarmann
John Wayne Gacy
Thats just a few
Seriously Jimmer? You think its just fine and dandy for Christians to be persecuted? Please tell us more of your belief system. This should be good.
Yes....Christians are the ones full of hate....
It isn't Christians being persecuted. It is @sses pushing their beliefs on others and CLAIMING to be Christian.
There are many GLBT Christians and allies. Learn to recognize that fact.
C Binky, this man had every intention to break into this facility and kill as many people as he could. This is an assumption we can make by seeing how much ammunition he had on him. Why is this acceptable behaviour to you?
War on reliion? When is war religion not together? Seems like religion has been making war on the world for much longer. Maybe the world is sick of it?
So you are condoning violence as a way to get their point across?
It's about damn time
I want a body count.
Carpet bomb the Vatican
Nuke every country wear people wear religious clothes.
Open camps to re-educate the red neck children
This is gonna be WAYYY cooler than the Olymimpics were!
I got to reread my copy of the Turner Diaries, get ready to fight fire with fire!
Where's the NRA declaring that Floyd Lee Corkins II was exercising his 2nd amendment rights to rebel against an inst'tution he disagreed with?
This Floyd Lee Corkins II (so far innocent until proven guilty) is likely to be convicted as a criminal, and in my opinion, deservedly but it really frustrates me that here we have an incident of gun violence – not portrayed as "insanity" by the gun apologists, but a "license to kill" from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
I thought "guns didn't kill", and any blame on 'wrongful' use of guns was the fault of the shooter. Now the fault is a liberal conspiracy to attack the faith-based community?? What dreck!!
A few weeks ago we had a white-supremacist kill peace-loving Sikhs and there were hundreds of posts here wishing that he got his target right. Here we have a lone nutter who mangaged to wing someone and its "liberal conspiracy" time.
The hipocracy of the religionists makes my brain hurt.
Still waiting for the conservatives to decry the "war on medicine" after the dozen or so attacks on abortion clinics in the last 5 years.
Couldn't have said it any better, except extend the time period.
You reap what you sow.
redirect the spotlight somewhere else eh!
so two wrongs make a right?
Hey, let us not confuse the utter stupidity of some individuals with the truth about religion.
A summary of the truth. Details available upon written request:
Putting the kibosh on religion to include Mormonism:
• There was probably no Abraham i.e. the foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are non-existent.
• There was probably no Moses i.e the pillars of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have no strength of purpose.
prob•a•bly
Adverb: Almost certainly; as far as one knows or can tell.
• There was no Gabriel i.e. Islam fails as a religion. Christianity partially fails.
• There was no Easter i.e. Christianity completely fails as a religion.
• There was no Moroni i.e. Mormonism is nothing more than a business cult.
• Sacred/revered cows, monkey gods, castes, reincarnations and therefore Hinduism fails as a religion.
• Fat Buddhas here, skinny Buddhas there, reincarnated Buddhas everywhere makes for a no on Buddhism.
A quick search will put the kibosh on any other groups calling themselves a religion.
e.g. Taoism
"The origins of Taoism are unclear. Traditionally, Lao-tzu who lived in the sixth century is regarded as its founder. Its early philosophic foundations and its later beliefs and rituals are two completely different ways of life. Today (1982) Taoism claims 31,286,000 followers.
Legend says that Lao-tzu was immaculately conceived by a shooting star; carried in his mother's womb for eighty-two years; and born a full grown wise old man. "
So you are advocating violence against those who believe in God?
Please note the comment about the utter stupidity of a few individuals i.e. individuals on both sides of this debate. Tis a matter of education not violence towards anyone.
To wit:
It is time to replace all religions with a few rules like "Do No Harm" and self-conversion of all houses of "worthless worship" to recreation facilities and parks.
Holy hell. Do these people have any idea how many whackos there are in the South, midwest, and southwest who are part of "christian militias"?? Those nutjobs are just waiting for a spark to go off. If the conservatives keep this up, it might actually turn into a literal war!
I think your confused this was an attack by a left wing terrorist against a conservative organization. Not the other way around.
@greg – I am aware. There are various groups who call themselves "christian militias" and are preparing for some kind of American holy war. I don't want what is obviously fear-mongering to ignite it.
Nobody is more oppressed than the absolute majority, holding a complete, cultural hegemony. Wait...
@Ivan
The United States has never been a favourable place for white, christian, land owning males.
They weren't even given the right to vote until 1776!
@Doc,
technically 1787 – but I fully agree with the sentiment.
"In an interview with Fox News Channel, Perkins framed the incident as an attack on Christians everywhere."
I'm a Christian and this wasn't an attack on me. The FRC is full of a bunch of lunatics whose logic only works in the insulated environment that they have created for themselves...
Of course they feel like this is a War On Religion. They like nothing more than to paint themselves as victims
hmmm well it does appear that they are victims here, I don't remember hearing of the FRC marching into a gay club or organization and trying to shoot it up
so, nathan, do you feel that this incident is representive what those who disagree with the FRC do, or want to do?
nathan: perhaps the FRC does not shoot people up, but they sure seem interested in deny others' their civil rights
It more about questioning the foundation on which they've based their faith system on. They will not admit to the obvious, which is; IT'S A BOOK. It was written by some very insightful old dudes. And it seems insightful old dudes were speckled across the globe, because many people have different books.
Look..... find me ONE, ........I mean....ONE undeniable shred of evidence that even ghosts truly exist. That's small potatos next to proving God. If someone can do that, it'll open the eyes of many disbelievers. Because now we've confirmed an afterlife. Or at least an alternate dimension of consiousness. Idk.
The simplest way to prove God Exists is to look at the Jew, There history and Prophecy from the Book that pertains to them.
Dont waist your time looking for a spirits of your dead Grandmother, Ghosts of folks who once lived do not exist.
Can you see the air? How do you know it exist? Can you see your brain? It probably doesn't exist.
After persecuting non believers for 2000 years, they have the audacity to whine about persecution.
Exactly, jimmer. Totally agree.
This is like HeavenSent's persecution complex from yesterday.
A majority of 78% of the population (Christians) claims they are 'under attack' from 4% of the population (Athesists and Agnostics). It is absurd.
It just goes to show how unstable the foundation of their philosophy is if the 'truth' according to the 4% quakes the 'truth' according to the 78%.
Matthew 7:26
But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.
And for you bible apologists, yes, I am deliberately taking this quote out of context and reversing its meaning.
So you think they should line up and let this fella shoot them because they deserve it.
Aren't you special!
@Geg s,
to whom do you address your absurd remark?
"So you think they should line up and let this fella shoot them because they deserve it"
Well I'm kind of torn. On one hand, yes, I think they deserve it.
On the other hand, I don't think it's fair to execute people who are mentally retarded.
So I guess we'll just have to spare the christians.