I would like to ask this question:  If you encounter someone who thinks that the Dominionists/NAR/"Religious Right" are just some backwoods hicks or a few individuals acting up- how would you respond?

Below is the press release, from Hawaii citizen-activist Carroll Cox, sent out, at 3:30 PM IST on Saturday October 29, to Hawaii media concerning shocking video of Hawaii Republican candidates at a nakedly supremacist religious event at which a kynote speaker declared, "We put our foot on Hawaii!"  

Yesterday, when I found the disturbing ITN conference video footage, from a ceremony at the November 2009 International Transformation Network Hawaii conference, I posted the full version of the ceremony (~50 minutes) and alerted Hawaii AM radio show host Carroll Cox - who watched the video and noticed several current Hawaii political candidates in the audience as evangelist Francis declared, "We put our foot on Hawaii!" and uttered prayers to drive "generational curses", "witchcraft", and "false gods" from the State of Hawaii.  

Cox called the campaign offices of several of the candidates, including the office of Cam Cavasso, running against US Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye and the office of Shaun Kawakami, running for a seat in the Hawaii State House of Representative, District 38, to confirm their attendance at the November 2009 ITN Hawaii conference.

Following is a partial transcript of video from the International Transformation Network conference in Hawaii in 2009. Speakers at the conference included Lt. Gov. and gubernatorial candidate James "Duke" Aiona;  Apostle Ed Silvoso, founder of ITN; Francis Oda, chairman of Global ITN and founder of Transformation Hawaii; Allen Cardines, president of Transformation Hawaii; and Apostle Pat Francis of Toronto, Canada. Also participating was candidate for the U.S. Senate, Cam Cavasso. 

The problems with proselytizing at the Air Force Academy have finally made the news around here.

A nice follow-up piece to Jeff Sharlet's Straight Man's Burden, in Nov/Dec Mother Jones.

The Associated Press has a nice run down on the growing influence of conservative Catholic bloggers.  Here are a few excerpts:

Enraged by dissent that they believe has gone unchecked for decades, and unafraid to say so in the starkest language, these activists are naming names and unsettling the church.

_In the Archdiocese of Boston, parishioners are dissecting the work of a top adviser to the cardinal for any hint of Marxist influence.

_Bloggers are combing through campaign finance records to expose staff of Catholic agencies who donate to politicians who support abortion rights.

_RealCatholicTV.com, working from studios in suburban Detroit, is hunting for "traitorous" nuns, priests or bishops throughout the American church.

The financial troubles of the Crystal Cathedral bring a reminder of the tensions with evangelical Christianity over the Prosperity Gospel

Veteran judge throws a defense attorney in jail for refusing to recite the pledge of allegiance.

"I enjoy the advice he's given. I think it's been a major part of my life. I'm not ashamed of that. What he has said I believe to be the truth." - Alan Grayson opponent Daniel Webster, as interviewed about his relationship with Bill Gothard for a February 16, 1997 St. Petersburg Times story.

"Wives are instructed to submit to their husbands. (See Ephesians  5:22, I Peter 3:1)" - Bill Gothard, from Rebuilders Guide, published by the Institute For Basic Life Principles, 1982.

"In their advice to women, the books [Gothard's books] read like sharia law, with strict instructions on how to dress, date, and run a home, and with strict consequences for disobedience." - Hanna Rosin, God's Harvard, 2007, page 92

"By disobeying God's word and taking matters into her own hands, the wife destroys both her own family and her husband's family. She sows the seeds of destruction in her families of her children and her grandchildren "to the third of fourth generation." (See Deuteronomy 5:9.)" - Bill Gothard, from Rebuilders Guide.

"Once they are married, the husband "gives the law" and the wife "works out the proper procedure to carry it out." Equal authority in marriage is "Satan's goal." The key to a happy marriage is "the wife's submission and the husband's sacrifice." - Hanna Rosin, quoting Bill Gothard, page 93

Alan Grayson has recently been taken to task by the media (most recently on Anderson Cooper) for releasing a campaign ad that took his opponent Daniel Webster's words from a 2009 Nashville religious conference out of context. Grayson's ad portrayed Webster as saying "submit to me," suggested Webster was advocating female submission.

But Bill Gothard, the religious leader behind the conference who Daniel Webster has been very close to for over 3 decades, does indeed teach a  doctrine of female submission, and as Daniel Webster told the St. Petersburg Times for a February 16, 1997 story, concerning his relationship with evangelist Bill Gothard, "I enjoy the advice he's given. I think it's been a major part of my life. I'm not ashamed of that. What he has said I believe to be the truth."

The St. Petersburg Times story noted that Daniel Webster and his wife have used Bill Gothard's curriculum to homeschool their 6 children. Gothard teaches a literal interpretation of the Bible, including Young-Earth creationism and doctrines of submission to authority and female submission to men.

A jail in South Carolina is being sued for allowing the inmates to only having Bibles while denying them access to anything else.  

"I enjoy the advice he's given. I think it's been a major part of my life. I'm not ashamed of that. What he has said I believe to be the truth." - Dan Webster, on Bill Gothard, as printed in the Florida St. Petersburg Times, February 16, 1997

"Gothard even advises a wife whose husband chastises her to say, "God, thank you for this beating." - Time Magazine, May 20, 1974, Obey Thy Husband

"Wives are instructed to submit to their husbands." - Bill Gothard, 1982, Rebuilder's Guide

"In their advice to women, the books [Gothard's books] read like sharia law, with strict instructions on how to dress, date, and run a home, and with strict consequences for disobedience." - Hanna Rosin, God's Harvard (HarcourtBooks, 2007), page 92

Does Florida Republican congressional candidate Dan Webster old Taliban-esque views? The religious right is doing its absolute best to bury the truth about Daniel Webster's over 3-decade, close relationship with Bill Gothard, and the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer, an advocate for "Biblical stoning" who has compared gay sex to "domestic terrorism", says Alan Grayson got it all wrong about Daniel Webster and female submission.