澳彩开奖

They just can鈥檛 stop lying. They claim to represent Christianity and the celestial love for mankind that Christ embodied, but when it comes to whomever they regard as their enemies here on planet Earth, the crudest of libels will do.

The latest example of the religious right鈥檚 endless series of came last Friday from Janet Porter, the former Janet Folger who heads the Faith2Action website, is an Obama-bashing 鈥渂irther,鈥� and really, really dislikes gay people. On a YouTube video, Porter claimed that the 澳彩开奖 had named the Concerned Women for America a hate group, published its president鈥檚 address, and 鈥渋nvited鈥� people to 鈥渧isit鈥� her.

鈥淧enny Nance of Concerned Women for America is concerned,鈥� Porter says in a voice that telegraphs worry on her latest propaganda video. 鈥淭he 澳彩开奖 has labeled CWA as a hate group and they published her personal information and address and invited people to 鈥榲isit鈥� her.鈥�

A small problem for the big-mouthed spinner of tall tales: The 澳彩开奖 has never listed the CWA as a hate group. The 澳彩开奖 never published any personal information or address for Nance. And the 澳彩开奖 never suggested that anyone visit her. Even Nance knows that. In the fundraising E-mail that was Porter鈥檚 source, Nance says another 鈥渓iberal organization鈥� labeled CWA a hate group, though she never says which one and only the 澳彩开奖 publishes such a group list. And she attributed the publication of her address and the invitation to visit her merely to 鈥渢he anti-CWA crusade.鈥�

Porter鈥檚 bald-faced lie is one of a barrage aimed at 澳彩开奖 that has come from the religious right in recent days and weeks. This morning, Rick Manning, the vice president of Americans for Limited Government, published his own scurrilous bit of yellow journalism on his group鈥檚 NetRightDaily website under the racy headline, 鈥湴牟士�奖 tied to domestic terrorism.鈥�

The centerpiece of Manning鈥檚 attack is a video published by the (FRC) last week that shows a man who wounded a security guard at its headquarters telling investigators that he got the FRC鈥檚 name from the 澳彩开奖 list of hate groups as it appears on our website. That is apparently true, although it is false, as some on the religious right have claimed, that the shooter, Floyd Lee Corkins, found the street address of FRC on our website before carrying out the Aug. 15, 2012, attack. In fact, we never publish addresses of the groups we criticize.

But that was enough for Manning, who wrote that the 澳彩开奖 is 鈥渘ow directly tied to a terrorist act鈥� and has been 鈥渃ertified in federal court as being directly responsible for an act of domestic terrorism.鈥� Certified? Directly responsible? Well, not really. But for people like Manning, any wild-eyed claim is apparently acceptable.

Manning was only the latest on the far right to try to get mileage out of the video taken from the court record and publicized by the FRC, which has blamed the 澳彩开奖鈥檚 hate group designation for the August attack on its guard. Last week, Tom Trento of an anti-Muslim group called United West published an exhaustive, five-part series soberly titled, 鈥湴牟士�奖 Exposed!鈥� Amid Trento鈥檚 overheated descriptions of the 澳彩开奖鈥檚 鈥減ro-gay agenda,鈥� 鈥減ro-Islamic jihad agenda鈥� and 鈥渁nti-American activities,鈥� the series鈥� core is an interview with Tony Perkins, the head of the FRC and a man who has consistently lied about the reasons why 澳彩开奖 listed the FRC as a hate group in the first place.

Perkins has claimed in repeated appearances on national television and in print that the 澳彩开奖 because it opposes same-sex marriage and believes the Bible describes homosexual behavior as a sin. As he knows 鈥� in part, because I over these very matters and, in part, because we have refuted his claim dozens of times in the national press 鈥� that is entirely false. But it serves his purposes to say so, because 鈥� that it regularly propagates known and defamatory falsehoods 鈥� is a little harder to criticize. Those falsehoods include the claim, repeated again and again over the years by Perkins and his fellow gay-bashing zealots, that gay men molest children at far higher rates than straight men do; that pedophilia, in Perkins鈥� 2010 words, is 鈥渁 homosexual problem.鈥� Or how about this, from an earlier FRC pamphlet: 鈥淥ne of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the 鈥榩rophets鈥� of a new sexual order.鈥� Yeah, right.

Perkins, Manning, Porter and the rest of them 鈥� the attacks on the 澳彩开奖 in the last week or so have been too numerous to count 鈥� seem to think it鈥檚 fine to concoct utter falsehoods in their efforts to defame LGBT people. But when the 澳彩开奖 takes them to task for those lies, their response is to attack perfectly legitimate criticism by saying the critics are responsible for any mentally ill or otherwise unhinged person who decides that the matter needs to be settled at the point of a gun.

Perhaps it would be better 鈥� surely, it would be more Christ-like 鈥� for these groups to quit demonizing gay people and affirm the dignity of all people. But that might be too much to ask from those who are happy to lie in defense of their cause.