CREW Urges Obama to Skip the Prayer Breakfast.

From Lezgetreal, a story on the recent call by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) for Obama to skip The Family's annual National Prayer Breakfast.

Sure, it's important to end the charade that the prayer breakfast is some innocuously faithful event now that the lid has been blown off the real workings of The Family. But what I wouldn't give to hear senators and representatives vocalize disdain for the infiltration of our government by a creepy pseudo-Christian group that has been influencing national and international politics for decades with quiet money, secret trips, crazy theology, and disdain for American's founding objectives. But alas, if it's sex scandals and a breakfast meeting that gets us all upset, so be it. The more exposure The Family gets, the better.

And lordy, if you haven't yet read the book, buy it now!

In a letter (pdf) addressed to President Obama,Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, CREW(Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) asks that the administration not support the National Prayer Breakfast, run by the religious group known as “The Family”. President Obama has been invited and is expected to attend and address the gathering, as he did last year. In fact, up until 1970, it was called the “Presidential Prayer Breakfast”.

In an interview with AlterNet in December 2009, Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The secret fundamentalism at the heart of American power, points out that invitations to the event are sent on congressional headed paper, despite the event clearly a Christian, non-ecumenical event and is clearly in violation of the First Ammendment.

CREW cites a laundry list of ethics scandals involving those affiliated with the group, especially those housed at the notorious C-Street location in Washington DC. Names include: Senator John Ensign, Senator Tom Coburn, Governor Mark Sanford, and Representative Todd Tiahrt. They go on to show how The Family fail to operate with any clear mission or transparency, and seem to recruit heavily from amongst legislators.

Uganda and Homosexuality.

Two new stories about Uganda and the anti-homosexuality bill there that originally proposed killing gays but now favors, after US pressure, lifetime imprisonment and "curative" procedures.

At RHRealityCheck, Edwin Ocong'o asks why Ugandans have so willingly accepted the Religious Right's anti-homosexuality ideas.

At The Nation, Peter Rothberg asks Americans to raise their voices against the discriminatory and draconian proposals in Uganda.

And a new article from Voice of America on how Ugandan officials are reacting to the increasing pressure form non-religious American voices.

Sharlet on Maddow.

The gays are murderers like the Nazis and perpetrators of Rwanda's genocide. The kill the gays bill in Uganda is now the "imprison and counsel the gays" bill. The Family trying to cover up their foreign policy influence and discredit those exposing them. Yup. It's all in there:

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The Family, Joe Pitts, and Abortion.

From Jeff Sharlet's blog today:

This fall, anti-abortion activists cheered for the Stupak-Pitts Amendment -- or, the Pitts-Stupak Amendment, as Rep. Joe Pitts' office called it. The amendment nearly derailed health reform and threatened to roll back abortion rights. In Salon, on NPR's "Fresh Air," MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show," and in other venues I reported on the Family's relationship to the amendment. Representative Bart Stupak has been enjoying subsidized rent at the Family's C Street House since at least 2002. Rep. Pitts' relationship goes back much further, to the late 1970s. Pitts didn't respond, but Stupak has been vocal in denying any connection between the Family, which he characterizes as apolitical, and anti-abortion activism.

The following letter, from Family organizer Fred Heyn to Pitts -- then a state legislator and national anti-abortion activist -- and an associate, Glenn Cunningham, is just one of the many documents contained within the Family's archives that prove Rep. Stupak wrong. It can be found in folder 8, box 386, collection 459 of the Billy Graham Center Archive. It represents the early days of Pitts' anti-abortion activism through the Family.

September 2, 1980

Dear Joe and Glen,

The dinner at the Cedars [The Family's $4 million Arlington mansion] recently with you and your invited guests was a great pleasure. We appreciate the way in which you are working together and, although as a fellowship we do not officially become involved in issues, we're grateful when men like yourselves take the leadership on a national issue as important as the one on which you're working. We pray for you and God's leadership in the days ahead as you work on it.

Also, Doug Coe, Stu and I have visited and we are agreed to help with this work as much as we're able.

Thanks again for being here and for including us...

Yours Sincerely,
Fred Heyn

Jeff Sharlet, Rachel Maddow, and the "Kill Gays" Legislation Proposed in Uganda.

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Don't miss Jeff Sharlet on the Rachel Maddow show last night. He drew the connections between the Family and a proposed "kill gays" law in Uganda.

Stupak-Pitts Amendment and The Family.

Do not miss Jeff Sharlet's scary segment on Rachel Maddow last night. He connects the dots on The Family and the new evangelical power within the Democratic party.

C Street, Coming Around Again.

When Jeff published his book, The Family, over a year ago, there was little enthusiasm in its reception by the media. Then a few months ago, the C Street sex scandals of John Ensign and Mark Sanford hit the news in a big way, sending Jeff through the media gauntlet and his book to the top of the New York Times best sellers list.

Today an investigative piece by Eric Lichtblau and Eric Lipton (who was on MSNBC this afternoon) brings light again to the Family, the secretive, religious organization with its nefarious finger in nearly every government pot.

Sadly, the sex is the least scary and illegal of The Family's involvements. Paying off a mistress is nothing in my mind compared to running countries into the ground (Somalia) and undemocratically steering laws (on labor, say). That the Family is given a spotlight about it's sex scandals will lead to even more in depth investigations is my hope.

For a summary, see Adele Stan's piece at AlterNet. For an interview with Jeff by Bill Berkowitz see ReligionDispatches.