2009 Value Voters Summit - Know and Beware Of The Participants

The 2009 Value Voters Summit is underway through Sunday, Sept. 20th.  Several leaders of the Republican Party and various organizations with socially conservative agenda attended and spoke.  Whether you are conservative, liberal or moderate, you should know the people attending this summit and what they are promoting because they intend to retake the White House and Congress and legislate their social doctrine.  Get informed and take a position.  You might be voting for or against one or more of these people in 2010 and 2012.

The following are the titles of several of the sessions at the summit:

• TRUE TOLERANCE: COUNTERING THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
• OBAMACARE: RATIONING YOUR LIFE AWAY
• MARRIAGE: WHY IT'S WORTH DEFENDING AND HOW REDEFINING IT THREATENS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
• GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA: THE NEW FACE OF THE "PRO-DEATH" AGENDA
• SPEECHLESS - SILENCING THE CHRISTIANS
• THE NEW MASCULINITY (an anti-Feminist movement)
• THUGOCRACY - FIGHTING THE VAST LEFT WING CONSPIRACY
• DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD
• ACTIVISM AND CONSERVATISM: FIT TO A TEA (PARTY)

I collected some background information on only a few of the speakers.  Know what they have said and done so that you will know where they would lead you.

Gary Bauer, President of American Values (ran for U.S. President in 2000 as a Republican)

• More $ for defense & police; less $ for welfare & arts.
• Spend surplus on defense, debt, & Medicare; not education.
• End funding of NEA.
• End affirmative action
• If not prayer, recite Declaration.
• The law recognizes and encourages heterosexuality.
• Posting Ten Commandments will reduce crime.
• No same-sex marriages.
• Ban gay hiring.
• Miranda rights not as important as victim rights.
• Allow Ten Commandments in schools & disallow Nazi salutes.
• Vouchers for home-schooling as well as private schools.
• Africa: Needs better governments, not bailouts.
• Restrain and reverse liberal judicial activism.
• No campaign contributions from Hollywood.
• Legislating morality ok, if it’s our best values.
• Require teen moms to live with parents.
• "I don't see why Christians should censor themselves out of any forum in which our perspectives can be heard. I disagree with the theology of many groups that I address; Jews, for example, who do not accept Jesus, or atheists."
• Nine members of Bauer's 2000 campaign staff quit in a month’s time, including Charles Jarvis, Bauer's campaign manager, and Tim McDonald, former chief of advance operations. Jarvis and McDonald said publicly that they resigned in protest of Gary Bauer's "inappropriate" behavior in travelling alone and spending time behind closed doors with a 26-year-old deputy campaign manager. The boards of two religious groups long connected with Bauer, the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, have warned him to not travel alone with her or meet behind closed doors for extended periods.

Kris Mineau, Massachusetts Family Institute

• “Many citizens who oppose gay marriage also oppose civil unions. The coalition believes it is confusing and unethical to restrict citizens to one vote on two opposing issues, which this amendment would have done.”

Representative Mike Pence (R-Ind.)

• Mike Pence is a member of House committee called Operation Offset. They proposed a $543 billion military spending-cut to offset the cost of the Hurricane Katrina "relief and reconstruction effort" of the Gulf Coast. They are, for instance, asking troops to 'accept reduced health care benefits for their families.' Additionally, 'the stateside system of elementary and secondary schools for military family members could be closed.'
• Wants to enact legislation that will prohibit any president from appointing so-called Czars. Has called for a background investigation of Obama’s czars. Czar is a term coined by the news media. It is not an official title. The first czar was appointed by Roosevelt during WWII; he was responsible for finding enough rubber for the military. GW Bush had 46 czars.

Governor Mike Huckabee, 2008 Republican Presidential candidate

• Won the straw poll at the Values Voter Summit as the favorite Republican Presidential candidate for 2012. Tied for 2nd place in the poll are: Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Mike Pence. Top issues identified by the straw poll voters are: abortion, protection of religious liberties, same-sex marriage and tax cuts.
• As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee used his influence to prevent an investigation of his son’s killing of a dog by hanging while working as a camp counselor. Huckabee’s son was fired. The local prosecutor asked the state police to investigate. Huckabee’s chief of staff and personal lawyer asked the director of the state police to deny the request for an investigation. The director refused. Seven months later Huckabee fired the director because “I couldn’t get you to help me with my son when I had that problem.”

Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)

• Has repeatedly boasted that he will “break” Obama by defeating health care reform.
• Has made a habit of comparing government under Obama to fascism.
• Favors eliminating the Internal Revenue Service and Federal income tax.
• Openly gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools.
• Single mothers who live with their boyfriends should not be allowed to teach in public schools.

Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)

• Accuses Congress of being un-American and calls for an investigation of its members.
• "We're running out of rich people in this country."
• “The recovery package is part of a Democratic conspiracy to "direct" funding away from Republican districts, so Democratic districts can "suck up" all federal funds.“
• Thinks that President Obama is possibly trying to control the nation's food supply.
• Calls on Americans to "make a covenant, slit our wrists, be blood brothers” against health care reform.
• In a speech to the House, connected the 1970s swine flu outbreak to Democrat Jimmy Carter being president, even though it was actually Gerald Ford in office at the time.
• “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, “Having a revolution every now and then is a good thing.””
• Argued in the House that the threat of manmade global warming doesn’t make any sense because “Carbon dioxide, Mister Speaker, is a natural byproduct of nature. Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can’t even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that’s on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that — that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.”

Kelly Shackelford, Chief Counsel, Liberty Legal Institute

• Opposes same-sex marriage.
• “I think the idea that Texas is going to somehow suffer because it's not becoming like Massachusetts is silly. Texas is attractive for many people for the reason that it is not like Northeastern states. Those kind of traditional moral beliefs that provide children with both a mom and a dad are the reason that people are attracted to Texas.
• Warns that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are going to destroy religious freedom by passing the Freedom of Choice Act, repealing DOMA, reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, passing hate crimes legislation and, most ominously, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Carrie Prejean, Former Miss California

• “I am disgusted at the way that some people can be so intolerant. It disgusts me.”

Stephen Baldwin

• Baldwin’s organization, Operation Straight Up (OSU), distributed “Freedom Packages” to soldiers serving in Iraq. The package included the video game “Left Behind” whose players wage a violent war against United Nations-like peacekeepers who represent the armies of the Antichrist.

Rev. Dr. Ken Hutcherson, Senior Pastor, Antioch Bible Church, Kirkland, WA

• Urged Christians to buy up Microsoft stock then dump the stock at the same time to drive the stock price down to punish Microsoft management for supporting gay-rights legislation.

Representative Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)

• Blunt told the following story at the Values Voters Summit to explain the state of pandemonium in Washington. “A long time ago in India, Blunt said, a group of British occupiers set about building a golf course from what was formerly a stretch of wilderness. Much to their surprise, as soon as the first balls were played, monkeys would run out and play with them. The monkeys might throw a ball from fairway to sand, from sand to fairway -- or even back at the golfer. Eventually, the golfers had to agree to a new rule, never before used in the game. "You have to play the ball where the monkey throws it. And that is the rule in Washington all the time."
• Voted NO on allowing stockholder voting on executive compensation.
• Voted NO on additional $10.2B for federal education & HHS projects.
• Voted NO on allowing Courts to decide on "God" in Pledge of Allegiance.
• Voted YES on allowing school prayer during the War on Terror.
• Voted NO on giving mental health full equity with physical health.
• Voted NO on adding 2 to 4 million children to SCHIP eligibility.
• Voted YES on denying non-emergency treatment for lack of Medicare co-pay.
• Voted YES on limited prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients.
• Voted YES on subsidizing private insurance for Medicare Rx drug coverage.
• Voted NO on requiring FISA warrants for wiretaps in US.
• Voted NO on restricting no-bid defense contracts.
• Opposes the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.