By David Badash
Raw Story (8/4/20)
A Houston Chronicle reporter posted what appears to be a screenshot from Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr’s Instagram account, and it’s going viral on social media. The unconfirmed photo appears to be of Falwell Jr., with his arm around a young woman, his pants unzipped with underwear showing. He is holding a glass.
“More vacation shots,” the caption reads. “Lots of good friends visited us on the yacht. I promised that’s only black water in my glass. It was a prop only.”
- Liberty University Student Unloads On Jerry Falwell Jr’s Hypocrisy After Bizarre Yacht Party Photos Emerge — A photo recently posted then deleted by Jerry Falwell Jr. left people scratching their heads after a screen shot of the image started making the rounds on social media. … Read The Rest
Trump-Loving Right-Wing Pastor Perry Stone Accused Of Acting Inappropriately With Female Employees
By Kyle Mantyla
Right Wing Watch (7/31/20)
Radical Trump-loving, right–wing pastor Perry Stone abruptly announced in April that he had “cleared [his] travel schedule for several months just to get away with the Lord, and will not be conducting” any meetings or leading any services for the foreseeable future.
No explanation was given for Stone’s sudden disappearance, and when he returned to the pulpit for the first time in three months on Tuesday night, he mentioned only that he had been suffering from various health issues that required him to reduce his workload and make some changes within the organization.
He conspicuously did not mention that he had been forced to go on sabbatical by the board of directors of his Voice of Evangelism ministry after being accused of acting inappropriately with female employees, as the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported …
*****
Dunkin’ Donuts To Require Masks After Trump-Supporting Pastor Threatens Worker
“This is the United States of America! Y’all hear me? Trump 2020!”
By Sky Palma
TheRaw Story (7/31/20)
In the wake of a threatening online rant from anti-LGBT pastor Greg Locke, Dunkin’ Donuts has announced that it will now require customers to wear masks in all its stores.
In the video, Locke said he had threatened to knock a Dunkin’ Donuts employee’s teeth down his throat. The video has been viewed nearly 6 million times on Facebook. Locke said the employee, who he called “Nazi Skippy,” asked him to wear a mask the next time he’s in the store. When Locke pushed open the door with his foot on the way out, the employee allegedly falsely accused him of trying to break the door’s glass.
“I said, ‘If you call me a liar one more time, I’m going to take these work boots and I’m going to kick your teeth down your throat,’” Locke said in his rant, which according to Towerload is a confession to a possible crime. …
Link To Story And 13-Minute Video
*****
D.C. Priest Who Criticized Coronavirus Restrictions Contracts COVID-19
By
HuffPost (8/4/20)
A Roman Catholic priest who publicly questioned whether coronavirus restrictions have gone too far has been diagnosed with COVID-19, prompting local health officials in Washington, D.C., to instruct some parishioners to quarantine.
Monsignor Charles Pope, of Holy Comforter St. Cyprian Catholic Church, was diagnosed with COVID-19 on July 27, the church said in a statement last week. As of Saturday, Pope was reported to be recovering and self-isolating with fellow priests and a seminarian at his rectory.
The priest insisted in a YouTube video Saturday that he had followed all the protocols required of him during services, such as wearing a mask and using alcohol to sanitize his hands. He said he’s not sure how he contracted the coronavirus.
He continued to voice skepticism about the extent to which normal life has been disrupted to try to stop the spread of COVID-19. …
*****
Trump’s Reelection Will Make Christians ‘The Head And Not the Tail’ In U.S., Says Ralph Reed At Evangelicals For Trump Event
By Peter Montgomery
Right Wing Watch (7/28/20)
The Evangelicals for Trump arm of President Donald Trump’s reelection operation held a Thursday night campaign event in Georgia at which prominent religious-right figures portrayed the president’s political opponents as agents of Satan and told conservative Christian voters that the election of Joe Biden would mean the end of religious freedom in America.
The event was emceed by Todd Lamphere, who works for White House aide and Trump spiritual adviser Paula White. Lamphere helps White use her official position and her One Voice Prayer Movement to promote Christian nationalist rhetoric and assist Trump’s political outreach to conservative evangelical Christians.
White was the event’s keynote speaker, and she drew on her long relationship with Trump to heap praise on his character, generosity, faith, and commitment to conservative evangelical leaders’ political priorities. She agreed with other speakers that “God has put him here.” And she engaged in the religious freedom fear-mongering that is shaping up as a key Trump campaign strategy, as it was in 2016. “They want to take our churches. They want to take our freedoms. They want to take our liberties. They want to take everything,” she said.
White described Biden as “a Trojan horse for a very radical left agenda that is behind him that wants to take down our churches.” She claimed that “this radical left agenda will take God out of everything.”
“You get to make a decision on Nov. 3,” she said. “Will you stand for God? Will you stand for the church?”
White was preceded by a series of religious-right leaders who took turns praising Trump and warning of disaster if he is not reelected.
It’s about the Supreme Court
Jentezen Franklin, a pastor with a multi-campus megachurch based outside Atlanta, highlighted the importance of future Supreme Court nominees. “This election is not about four more years. This election is about 37 more years, because if our president appoints two more Supreme Court justices, it’s going to affect your children and your children’s children[‘s] America that they grow up in,” Franklin warned conservative Christians. “Speak now or forever hold your peace. You won’t have another chance. You won’t have freedom of religion. You won’t have freedom of speech.”
Franklin, whose son Drake was introduced at the event as the executive director of the Evangelicals for Trump campaign, warned that a “massive dismantling of the America that God has so blessed and prospered and used greater than any nation in the history of the world” is just three months away. But he finished on an upbeat note, telling people, “We have come to the kingdom for such a time as this” and predicting a “tremendous miracle” on Election Day.
The elder Franklin was recently sued by Mike Evans, another pro-Trump evangelical leader, who has charged Franklin with failing to turn over millions of dollars he says Franklin raised for projects for Holocaust survivors that Evans’ ministry runs in Israel. Franklin’s church has denied the charges. …
(Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2019. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )