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Franklin Graham, the son of Rev. Billy Graham, says that President Barack Obama's re-election is just further evidence that "we've turned our back on God."

In an interview that aired Friday on the ABC Family Channel, CBN's David Brody asked Franklin Graham where the country is going now that a president who approves of same sex marriage will be in office four more years.

Graham explained that the "secularization of America wasn't going to stop" even if Obama had been defeated, but it could have been slowed down.

"That's why we need to get out and vote, and vote for candidates who support moral values," he insisted. "We need someone like a Jerry Falwell to come back and resurrect the Moral Majority movement where you get people that have a moral background who are willing to come together and vote for moral issues that are important to this nation."

"If that would take place, we would see a great change in this country, but our country is in trouble. It’s in trouble spiritually. We’ve turned our back on God."

Franklin Graham also suggested that Mitt Romney lost the election because the "vast majority of evangelicals did not go to the polls."

But a national post-election survey published by the Faith and Freedom Coalition found that a record 27 percent of the electorate in 2012 were evangelical voters. And about 78 percent of white evangelicals cast their ballots for Romney.

"Evangelicals turned out in record numbers and voted as heavily for Mitt Romney yesterday as they did for George W. Bush in 2004," Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed said in a statement last week. "That is an astonishing outcome that few would have predicted even a few months ago. But Romney underperformed with younger voters and minorities and that in the end made the difference for Obama."

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After Mitt Romney went pandering to the right-wing during his commencement address at Liberty University earlier this week, Bill Maher took his a few shots at the school during his New Rules segment on Real Time this Friday.

MAHER: And finally, new rule, you can't expect me to believe anything Mitt Romney said last week at Liberty University because a: He's a liar. And b: Liberty University isn't really a university. It's not like an actual statesman visited an actual college. It's more like a Tupac hologram visited Disneyland. [...]

This is a school you flunk out of when you get the answers right. [...]

Conservatives often say that gay marriage cheapens their marriage. Well, I think a diploma from Liberty cheapens my degree from a real school.

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Mitt Romney decided to double down on his opposition to gay marriage during his commencement address at Liberty University this Saturday. After having the unfortunate circumstance of watching the entire twenty minute speech which aired on C-SPAN, if you thought some of his speeches on the campaign trail were bad, this one was worse. The response from the crowd for the better part of the speech was tepid at best except for the portion where he spoke out against gay marriage, which did get him a healthy round of applause.

Romney's presence at the University was not welcomed by all. After the announcement that Romney would be giving the commencement address, students were protesting the school's decision to have him there: Liberty's choice of Romney leads to angry student response.

And this Saturday, there was this: Gay Republicans Slam Romney For Speaking At Liberty:

The gay consevative group GOProud is not happy Mitt Romney chose to speak at Liberty University Saturday.

A statement from GOProud co-founder Jimmy LaSalvia was sent to reporters as Romney delivered his address:

Today, Governor Mitt Romney spoke at Liberty University. Liberty was founded by the late Jerry Falwell, who in 2007 said, “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh’s charioteers … AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

The speech at Liberty comes just days after top Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said that Governor Romney would campaign on the issue of marriage. In response, JimmyLaSalvia, Executive Director and Co-Founder of GOProud – a national organization of gay and straight Americans seeking to promote freedom by supporting free markets, limited government, and a respect for individual rights, issued the following statement:

“The father of the modern conservative movement, former US Senator Barry Goldwater, once said of Jerry Falwell that he needed a kick in the ass. With his speech at Falwell’s Liberty University, it is clear that Governor Romney’s message to Goldwater conservatives is: drop dead.

You can read the rest of their response in the post at TPM. He was also met with this from MoveOn today: Romney’s Liberty University Speech Protested From The Air:

The student loan debate was (literally) in the air as Mitt Romney prepared to make his commencement address at Liberty University here. As the graduation ceremony at this evangelical Christian university began, a single-engined plane flew circles around the commencement towing a banner reading “GOP = HIGHER SCHOOL DEBT.”

The fight to extend the interest rate on Stafford loans is one of the few where President Obama and Romney are on the same page. Both favor extending low interest rates on Stafford student loans. The extension is currently tied up in Congress, where Republicans and Democrats are split on how to pay for the rate extension.

Transcript of Romney's remarks in the clip above below the fold via:

Continue reading »

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Rev. Jerry Falwell may have founded Liberty University, but students there seemed more interested in firearms than Christ during a Wednesday event featuring Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry.

Mention of the National Rifle Association (NRA) drew noticeably louder cheers than did the notion of "Christian values," which only prompted a smattering of applause.

Upon announcing the Texas governor, Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. noted Perry's support for the rights of gun owners.

"Liberty became one of only 78 universities in the nation to receive to receive a credit rating of AA or higher from Standard & Poor's," he said, adding that the credit rating agency had given the institution a positive outlook, while "they gave President Obama and the United State of America a negative outlook. So, we're proud of that."

"Today's speaker also has an A+ rating, but it's from the National Rifle Association," Falwell said.

The chancellor's remarks were interrupted with enthusiastic cheers from the audience of about 10,000 students.

Perry began his speech by thanking American Renewal Project's David Lane for helping him to organize a prayer event called "The Response" earlier this year.

"What a powerful message that we brought pastors together across the state of Texas, sharing with them the importance that they need to stand in the pulpit every day and defend the values, those Christian values," Perry said. "America is going to be guided by some set of values. The question is going to be who's values?"

"And David Lane and I -- and I would suggest the people in this audience -- believe it's those Christian values that this country was based upon!"

Perry paused for a reaction, but the audience could only muster reluctant applause.

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Here is the first 7 min of Beck's rambling and disjointed address yesterday. Apologies for the video quality as it was recorded off the tv screen itself, by a fan of Beck I assume.

The Lynchburg News & Advance describes the spectacle as so:

Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, a conservative firebrand and prominent figure in the Tea Party movement, stayed away from politics during his commencement speech, instead dishing advice such as “look to God and live.”

Beck received an honorary degree from Liberty. He never graduated from college but spent one semester at Yale University when he was 30, he said, leaving because he could not afford the tuition.

Beck, who is Mormon, delivered a speech that emphasized the power of faith in righting a country that he said has gone off track.“I look at the things that are facing you today: the worst economy in generations, the euro on the road to collapse, we’re spending ourselves into oblivion…” he said. “We live in a time where you must have great courage; you must have great faith. We live in a time where it seems truth is on the run.”

His message to the graduates was peppered with tears, humor and even some offbeat wisdom, such as “cabs smell worse in the summer” and “labels are meaningless, but Louis Vuitton shoes are really the best.”A significant portion of the ceremony was devoted to honoring the university’s founder.

As for paper's assertion that he "stayed away from politics", Beck sure spent a lot of time railing against the Obama administration and trying to link Obama himself with book burners and Adolf Hitler, as is his wont to do. Later he would offer the advice "Shoot to kill", which you can hear in context.

I suppose it is fitting that a ceremony designed to honor the memory of Jerry Falwell, the university’s founder, would feature Glenn Beck.

Later in the day Beck would address the NRA's Celebration of American Values Freedom Experience [sic], where "10,000 stood and roared."

Beck, backed by his familiar chalkboard, depicted a nation that has lost its faith in God, honor and American institutions.

"We have to think of something, because the Titanic is going down," he said. "We need to save the passengers, that's what we need to worry about. Let the ship sink if we have to. We have a great plan: It's called the Constitution, and we'll build another one."

In the end it's hard to decide which is the more depressing fact: that Glenn Beck should be awarded an honorary doctorate from anywhere or that Liberty University itself exists. Probably both are equally offensive.

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Ed Schultz talks to CREW's Melanie Sloan and VoteVets.org's Jon Soltz about the latest bit of trouble for Sean Hannity and his "Freedom Concerts". As we already noted Hannity was accused by blogger Debbie Schlussel of "using more money from his Freedom Concerts to fly around on private jets and expensive SUV's than he gives to the children of wounded and deceased soldiers". Now CREW and VoteVets have gotten in the act as well.

CREW, VoteVets File IRS, FTC Complaints Against Sean Hannity Charity Freedom Concerts:

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington alleges that Hannity's Freedom Concerts has "engaged in deceptive and illegal marketing practices by suggesting that all concert ticket sale revenue goes directly to scholarships for children of killed and wounded service members." Read on...

As AnnetteK at Daily KOS noted, Mother Jones has more on this as well -- Sean Hannity's Charity Under Fire:

The concerts, which are presented by the Fox News star and feature entertainers such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, purportedly donate their entire proceeds to Freedom Alliance, a non-profit led by Lt. Col. Oliver North. In turn, Freedom Alliance says it directs all of this money to a scholarship program for veterans' kids. "Every penny, 100 percent of the donations are applied to the Freedom Alliance scholarship fund," Hannity has claimed. North has made similar statements, remarking, "There's no overhead. There's no expenses taken out. Every penny that's donated or that's raised through things like the Freedom Concerts goes to the scholarship fund." (A giant "Thank you! Sean Hannity" currently appears on Freedom Alliance's homepage.)

CREW's complaint, lodged with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), alleges that Hannity and Freedom Concerts have been dishonest in suggesting that the entirety of the revenues from ticket sales goes straight to a scholarship fund. Freedom Alliance does not actually manage the concerts, Crew discovered via a Freedom of Information request and promotional materials. Instead, they're organized by a middleman—a promotional company called Premiere Marketing. The firm is headed by Duane Ward, who is also the president of Premiere Motivational Speakers Bureau, which represents both Hannity and North and has a "long history in conservative activism." Ward previously worked for Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and ran North's legal defense fund following the Iran-Contra scandal in the late 1980s. Premiere in turn donates an "unknown portion of the concert proceeds to the Freedom Alliance," alleges CREW. "We have no idea how much money it actually is," CREW executive director Melanie Sloan told reporters on Monday. But CREW argues that Hannity and Freedom Alliance's claims that the revenues go directly to scholarships amounts to "illegal and deceptive marketing practices." Read on...

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There's really not much to add to this story, so I'll let the video compilation and the links tell it. The video clips are from WSET in Lynchburg VA; Keith Olbermann picking Mark Hine as his #3 WPITW; and Rachel Maddow giving an overview and then an interview with Brian Diaz, president of the club.

You can sign their petition for reinstatement here.

Story:

Liberty University, the university founded by the late Christian evangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell, has revoked its recognition of the campus Democratic Party club, saying “we are unable to lend support to a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by” the university, The News & Advance, of Lynchburg, Va., reports.

“It kind of happened out of nowhere,” said Brian Diaz, president of the student Democratic Party organization that the school had formally recognized in October.

Diaz, the paper reports, said he got the news May 15 in an e-mail from Mark Hine, vice president of student affairs.

The e-mail is included here:

From: Hine, Mark (VP Student Affairs)

Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 1:37 PM

Subject: LU College Democrats

I must inform you that the College democrats' club is no longer going to be recognized as a Liberty University club. We are unable to lend support to a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by Liberty University.

--snip--

Even though this club may not support the more radical planks of the democratic party, the democratic party is still the parent organization of the club on campus. The Democratic Party Platform is contrary to the mission of LU and to Christian doctrine (supports abortion, federal funding of abortion, advocates repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, promotes the "LGBT" agenda, Hate Crimes, which include sexual orientation and gender identity, socialism, etc).