Liberty Counsel : Linking arms with Pam Geller, Tony Perkins, and other self-styled ‘Patriot’ Groups
It was standard Liberty Counsel rhetoric: Gay men and lesbians can and should change their orientation, because the Liberty Counsel considers it harmful and immoral. Barber and Staver dismissed leading, reputable mainstream organizations and instead touted the findings of small religious (often Christian-only) groups like the American Association of Christian Counselors, which the Liberty Counsel has said is larger than the APA (the APA has 154,000 members, while the AACC claims “nearly 50,000″).
What’s more surprising is that the Liberty Counsel seems to be dipping its toes into the anti-government “Patriot” pool. Patriot groups see the federal government as part of a conspiracy to impose a socialistic one-world government – or “New World Order” – on freedom-loving Americans. They often rail against involvement with the United Nations, worry about government instituting martial law, and express fears about “creeping socialism” (more recently, “creeping Shariah law”) and other government plots to undermine freedom.
In a recent fundraising letter, the Liberty Counsel included a “2011 State of the Nation Issues Survey,” in which participants check boxes that range from “strongly agree” to “disagree” when prompted by specific statements. Along with its usual claims – that LGBT people want “special rights,” that public schools should not teach the “homosexual agenda,” and the false claim that hate crime legislation punishes Americans for opposition to “the homosexual lifestyle” – the survey included other sections on “Homeland Security” and “Radical Islam.” In the “Homeland Security” section, one statement says, “American soldiers should never be forced to submit to the authority of U.N. commanders, nor wear a U.N. uniform.” Another says, “Ethnic profiling should be used to prevent further terrorist attacks, as Israel does.”
The Liberty Counsel also jumps on the anti-Islamic bandwagon in its “Radical Islam” section. There, participants are to respond to statements like “America should never incorporate Muslim Sharia law into our legal and economic systems, as is being promoted by the U.S. Muslim community.” And, sounding more like a Tea Party group, the survey’s statements in the “Economic/Domestic” section include calls to lower personal and business taxes, repeal Obama’s socialized health care, increase oil drilling in Alaska, and impeach “activist federal judges.”