Welcome to PRA’s live-blog of day 2 of the 2015 Values Voter Summit. If you’re looking for day 1, click here.
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9:10am Meeke Addison, spokesperson for the American Family Association
Great kickoff to the day, as the audience cheers as the American Family Association spokesperson proudly announces she works for a White Racist Hate Group. Addison also adds that “we don’t have to apologize when we’re called racists.”
Addison has turned to attack all non-Christians, saying that “there are no values except those based on the straight edge of the word of god.” Adds “you’re either for us or against us, and we know who they are and see their ugly heads rising up!”
Addison is just the latest at #VVS15 to compare herself and Kim Davis to Martin Luther King, Jr., says Christians who support LGBTQ rights and Planned Parenthood aren’t real Christians.
Addison is strongly hitting the points that the Christian Right needs to “get louder” with the Black community. What would that look like? Check this great analysis on the Christian Right’s “Abortion is Black Genocide” strategy here: http://www.politicalresearch.org/2010/04/29/abortion-as-black-genocide-…
9:34am Star Parker
Like Addison, Parker is going after the Black community for being “entirely dependent” on social services. It’s not by mistake that FRC has chosen their few Black speakers to be the ones delivering this message.
Parker strongly implies that every doctor in the country who provides abortions are just like Gosnell, who illegally performed late-term abortions.
“This is what happens” when our systems are attacked by a radical left-wing agenda, she says. “We’ve all forgotten about the foster care system, but the homosexuals haven’t! That’s where they go to get children!”
“Homosexuals are shameful.”
Parker says the U.S. cannot be a free nation until the government stops supporting homosexuality. Finishes by comparing the Christian Right’s fight against homosexuality and SRHR to the 1850s fight against slavery.
9:50am Sen. Lindsay Graham, presidential candidate
Graham spends a long time giving a low-energy recitation of his personal family history.
Now he’s moved on to the Senate’s refusal to pass the 20 week abortion ban. Says he will get them there eventually.
Graham says he’s very skeptical Republicans will be able to defund Planned Parenthood while Obama is the president. Very slowly working his way around to actually saying he’s the one people should vote for.
10:14am Tony Perkins & Mark Levin
By way of background, at last year’s VVS, Levin’s job was to quiet down and quell the Christian Right’s neo-confederate wing. See Fred Clarkson’s analysis here: http://www.politicalresearch.org/2014/10/01/vvs14-analysis-glenn-beck-m…
Perkins and Levin are discussing the resignation of John Boehner. Lots of boos from the audience at the idea of (California Rep) McCarthey taking over.
Levin says the country has taken a “hard left” turn and passed a tipping point.
Levin also calls for the complete abolishment of government, saying “let the government shut down and let us continue to live as free people.”
Levin on other countries’ cultures: “These are third world hell holes. … People want to say they’re the equivalent of America’s culture, well they’re not!” He adds that immigrants must be assimilated.
Levin really isn’t saying much other than “this will take a strong leader to clean up Obama’s mess.” Interestingly, though, he did add that that “environmentalism is a phony movement brought over from Europe, designed to destroy capitalism.”
11:10am Generals panel with Jerry Boykin, Benjamin Mixon, Bob Dees, and Thomas McInerney
McInterney starts off by lamenting the “smaller” military in the U.S. today. No mention of how the military is larger than the 50s thanks to newer technology.
Mixon’s opening statement lists top threats as Russia, China, and North Korea. Crowd boos, hisses, and shouts “shame!” at the idea of trans* people in the military and women in combat.
Dees vaguely hints at LGB soldiers raping their fellow soldiers, saying “our soldiers are now having to look behind their backs thanks to the top-down social engineering with gays and transgenders in the military.”
Boykin says that Christians in the military are being persecuted, while LGBT and Muslims are free to participate.
Mixon says that male-on-male sexual assaults have tripled since the repeal of DADT. Dees adds that a Republican president could “restore our military easily” (meaning somehow find and dishonorably discharge all LGBT and Muslim soldiers).
11:45am Brigitte Gabriel, terrorism “expert”
Gabriel says Islam “is a political movement cloaked in religion” designed to kill the Jews. Claims that the yellow Star of David patches were invented by Muslims to mark Jews “who were considered dirty.”
Gabriel is now touting the crusades for fighting Islam. She builds crowd’s anger up saying “Muslims have butchered by the sword 270,000,000 people.”
Gabriel now says Islam will definitely violate the Iran Deal and attack the U.S. “when we least expect it.”
Gabriel says that “77% of these so-called ‘moderate Muslims’ want to establish Sharia law and bring back the caliphate” that will destroy America.
Gabriel also says that the U.S. must reject the Syrian refugees, because they are Islamic terrorists who want to destroy America “and take over our country.”
12pm - 2pm Lunch Break
Here’s something to chew on during lunch. This meme has been getting passed around by attendees (not sure who authored it): 
2:05p, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn
Cahn starts with bible story about worshippers of Baal. Says America is just like ancient Israel and risks being destroyed.
Cahn says the Christian Right must bring back the days when governments, schools, and the media broadcast biblical sermons and stories. Cahn is the author of The Harbinger, and says that the signs of the apocalypse are appearing in the U.S.
Now that Cahn has gotten the audience sufficiently freaked out that the apocalypse is indeed coming, everyone will have to buy his book to find out when.
2:23pm Joel Rosenberg
“7 to 10% of all Muslims are extremists” like Osama bin Laden.
Rosenburg says while ISIS wants to commit genocide now, Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb to commit genocide later. #VVS15
3:15pm Breakout session “The Silencing of Free Speech in the Media and Education. Panelists Dave Garrison, Kate Obenshain, Kelly Shackelford.
Obenshain is complaining about University rules that prevent students from starting groups dedicated to the stripping civil rights from others. As is typical, Obenshain frames this as a “silencing of free speech,” but misrepresents the difference between speech and actions.
Shackelford claims that two weeks ago there was a meeting of all the major heads of LGBTQ organizations, where they announced that within 2 years they would destroy religious freedom. (Does anyone know what meeting he’s talking about??)
Obenshain says sportscasters on ESPN should be praised for speaking out against trans* players and issues. She also adds that everyone should dump political correctness, “not worry about civility,” and just speak up.
Obenshain says it’s the Left that’s objectifying women and keeping them dependent on government. Says Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann “should be the poster women for the feminist movement.”
Liberty Institute’s Kelly Shackelford just said that “the reason why the ACLU doesn’t defend religious free speech, I’ve found” is because “all of their board members are Jewish, and they’re afraid if Christian beliefs advance they may end up in a gulag. It’s all fear.”
Obenshain says it’s awful how people speak against you if you say that trans* people shouldn’t be able to have surgery.
Shackelford spent 3 minutes talking about the difference between public and private universities, and how private schools absolutely have the right to decide what speech they will allow and who they’ll accept as students, then he turns around and slams Vanderbilt University (private school) for making a new rule that school clubs cannot discriminate and must allow any student to join.
4:15pm Breakout Session “How to Argue the Social Issues” by the Heritage Foundation. Speaker David Azerrad.
Azerrad says he wants to teach audience how to argue social issues with liberals and libertarians, says it can be done without even bringing up god. First, he says, stop thinking of them as ‘social issues.’ “Social issues implies they’re not important and just for the religious and the old. Call them what they are: political issues.”
“The Left has same-sex marriage, next they want incest and polyamory.”
Azerrad complains that Democratic party not only supports a right to abortion, but that platform says even if woman can’t pay.
“Liberals and Libertarians agree Bruce should become Caitlyn, they disagree on who should pay for surgery” (crowd laughs)
Azerrad says social issues are all about “sustainability,” it’s about making sure society continues to the next generation. “If conservatives argue social issues under the premise of thinking about future generations, they can win.”
“There’s no such thing as parenting, there’s mothering and fathering. It’s common sense that children need a mother and a father.” Azerrad says it doesn’t matter if there’s a good example of same-sex parents, the majority are worse than real parents. “I’ll grant you a little girl is better off with gay parents than in an orphanage in Rwanda, but that’s not what the debate’s about!”
On marriage: “It’s not about discrimination. Discrimination is if you arbitrarily draw lines, like against Blacks or Jews.” According to Azerrad, because law didn’t mention homosexuality before recent laws, it’s impossible to discriminate against them.
When you talk to a liberal/libertarian, refuse to budge from your positions, treat them like they’re a 2 year old.
Unbelievable. Azerrad discusses a hypothetical of a Muslim working at a DMV who doesn’t want to take photos of women. “Well, reassign them to somewhere they don’t have to take photos!” He apparently sees absolutely no connection to the situation with Kim Davis, who just needed to step aside and let one of her deputies give the marriage licenses.
Azerrad also conceded that if someone is a monopoly in town, his example was an electricity provider who was the only game in town, they should not be allowed to use a religious justification for withholding services.
That’s it for us from the 2015 Values Voter Summit! Thanks for following along. Please don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @PRAeyesright and on Facebook /PoliticalResearchAssociates.