Sunday Sermon

"Ah don' care ef et rains er freezes/All Ah need's mah plastic Jee-zis/Settin' awn the dashboard of mah car." Bet this'n glows in the dark, too!
It's the Lord's Day (Doesn't the Constitution say something about no fucking "nobility" in the country? Why yes it does: "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States." Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8.) so let's look at what's up in the world of said unconstitutional activities.

Here's a whopper: Oral Roberts' son, Richard, appears to be a dick.

Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts says God is speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.

Likewise Oral's daughter-in-law, Lindsay (Well, she may not be a "dick," exactly, but she seems to like the idea of "dick"):

She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as "underage males."

[...]

Colleagues fear for the reputation of the university and the future of the Roberts' ministry, which grew from Southern tent revivals to one of the most successful evangelical empires in the country, hauling in tens of millions of dollars in contributions a year. The university reported nearly $76 million in revenue in 2005, according to the IRS.
Oral Roberts is 89 and lives in California. He holds the title of chancellor, but the university describes him as semi-retired, and his son presides over day-to-day operations on the campus, which had a modern, space-age design when it was built in the early 1960s but now looks dated, like Disney's Tomorrowland.

Don't you just love how these little empires stay right in the family? As feudal as their religions. And one must wonder about the "reputation" of the "University."

Cornell Cross II, a senior from Burlington, Vt., said he is looking to transfer to another school because the scandal has "severely devalued and hurt the reputation of my degree."
"We have asked and asked and asked to see the finances of our school and what they're doing with our money, and we've been told no," said, Cross who is majoring in government. "Now we know why. As a student, I'm not going to stand for it any longer."

Majoring in gov't. at ORU? Is this another one of those Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson deals where they fill the Justice Dep't. & any other agencies they can w/ little weasels more interested in their Bible than our Constitution?

Here's the lawsuit, in a pdf stylee. And here are the bullet points, well summarized by another web log operator, to save time:

• Richard Roberts ordered that university funds and resources be used to favor a candidate in a contested partisan race - an action that is illegal for tax-exempt corporations.
• The university furnishes the Roberts with complete housing benefits that include: 13 internet/cable connections, wide-screen televisions, hot tubs, and furnishings.
• The Roberts' home has been remodeled 11 times in the last 14 years.
• A longtime maintenance employee was fired so that an underage male friend of Mrs. Roberts could have his position.
• The Roberts children vandalized and damaged university property, but the university was never reimbursed for this damage.
• Dormitories received extensive structural modifications for the exclusive use of the Roberts' daughters, and all costs were passed on to the university.
• Richard Roberts' 2,000 square foot home office was remodeled into a walk-in closet to accommodate Mrs. Roberts' wardrobe. The wardrobe was paid for by the television production cost center.
• The Roberts family charged over $51,000 in clothing to the university, which was recorded as a business expense.
• Mrs. Roberts was given a white Lexus SUV and a red Mercedes convertible by ministry donors - including all insurance costs. Ministry Security was flown to Atlanta to take possession of her Mercedes and drive it back to Tulsa.
• Mrs. Roberts and her daughters frequently had cell-phone bills of more than $800 per month - the university pays this bill without limit.
• Records indicate that Mrs. Roberts replaced 21 cell phones within a two year period.
• Mrs. Roberts sent 800 text messages in a four month period. Many of those messages were sent between 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to "underage males who had been provided phones at university expense."
• The Roberts' daughters were home schooled in a "guest house" that had been renovated into a classroom. The room remained a guest house for tax purposes, and was paid for by ORU. No guests have ever stayed in the guest house.
• Richard Roberts maintains complete control over the university's airplane. Though no vice-president or regent has access to this university asset, the plane was used to ferry one of the Roberts' daughters to her senior trip in Orlando, Florida and another trip to the Bahamas.
• During the Bahama trip, that daughter stayed at the Atlantis hotel and resort. The Ministry was billed for the trip as an "evangelistic function for the president." The bill was $29,411.
• Mrs. Roberts spent over $39,000 at one clothing store - Chico's - in less than one year. She's quoted in nine different statements as saying, "As long as I wear it once on TV, we can charge it off."
• The university and ministry maintain a stable of horses for exclusive use by the Roberts children.
• Mrs. Roberts awarded 13 non-academic, non-need-based scholarships to friends of her children, two of whom had test scores below ORU's admission requirement. When a university employee questioned the admission of the unqualified students, Mrs. Roberts ordered that they be admitted without questioning and that the employee be fired.

These two bozos, and every other one of the TV turkeys who run one of these scams, live like kings on the donations of deluded, often impoverished, fools. Paul & Jan Crouch of Trinity Broadcasting Network, for example. What money they don't scam goes to more telebision time & stations to raise more donations, not to help any one. Except of course for the "prayer lines." We've never called one (Depressed, yes. Stupid, no.) but we'd bet that there's a plea for money in the script right after the "prayer request" is taken.

Continuing on the infiltrating the gummint tip, here from the Xtian Science (there's an actually murderous, not merely financial, scam) Monitor is the story of "end-times" evangelizing, especially at the Air Force Academy, which is unfortunate enough to be located in the epicenter of this crap, Colorado Springs, CO, home to such scum buckets as "Dr." James C. Dobson, & a large assortment of other such outfits. Everybody's favorite evangelical meth-user & gay hypocrite, Ted Haggard, used to run his New Life church there, 'til they ran him out of town on a rail. Enough cheap shots, let's look at the allegations:

On Sept. 17, the soldier and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) filed suit against Army Maj. Freddy Welborn and US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, charging violations of Hall's constitutional rights, including being forced to submit to a religious test to qualify as a soldier.

The MRFF plans more lawsuits in coming weeks, says Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, who founded the military watchdog group in 2005. The aim is "to show there is a pattern and practice of constitutionally impermissible promotions of religious beliefs within the Department of Defense."

For Mr. Weinstein – a former Air Force judge advocate and assistant counsel in the Reagan White House – more is involved than isolated cases of discrimination. He charges that several incidents in recent years – and more than 5,000 complaints his group has received from active-duty and retired military personnel – point to a growing willingness inside the military to support a particular brand of Christianity and to permit improper evangelizing in the ranks. More than 95 percent of those complaints come from other Christians, he says.

[...]

Weinstein insists, however, that there are improper actions at high levels that not only infringe on soldiers' rights but, at a very dangerous time, also send the wrong message to people in the Middle East that those in the US military see themselves engaged in Christian warfare. For example, he says, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who gave speeches at churches while in uniform that disparaged Islam and defined the war on terror in fundamentalist, "end times" terms, was not fired but promoted. (Speaking of a Muslim warlord he had pursued, Lt. Gen. Boykin said, "I knew my God was a real God and his was an idol." And our enemies "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.")
"There's an eschatologically obsessed version of Christianity that ... is trying to make American foreign and domestic policy conterminous with their biblical worldview," Weinstein charges. And "there's improper pressure within the military command structure to make members join them."

[...]

Col. David Antoon (ret.), another alumnus of the AFA and now a 747 commercial pilot, says his heart was broken when he took his son, Ryan, to an orientation at the academy in the spring of 2004. An overt evangelistic approach during part of the orientation so upset them, he says, that they decided his son would reject the treasured appointment and instead go to Ohio State University. "My son had dreamed of doing what I had done, but it was no longer the institution I went to," Colonel Antoon says, his voice cracking with emotion.
The Air Force set about reaffirming basic principles in religion guidelines, as a basis for widespread training, but a pushback by Evangelicals later led to Congress setting them aside until hearings could be held. The hearings have not taken place.

What are we waiting for? Someone in Congress to grow a backbone, we suppose. Could be a long wait.

In 2006, MRFF learned of a video produced by Christian Embassy, a group that conducts Bible studies at the Pentagon and seeks to evangelize within the armed services. Aimed at fundraising for the group, the video was improperly taped in the Pentagon and involved endorsements by Army and Air Force generals in uniform.
MRFF's public alert spurred a DOD investigation. In a report critical of the senior officers, the Inspector General said they gave the appearance of speaking for the military. One general defended his role by saying "Christian Embassy had become a quasi-federal entity."
The report noted that Maj. Gen. Paul Sutton participated while he served as chief of the US Office of Defense Cooperation in Turkey, a largely Muslim nation whose military takes pride in protecting the country's secular status. After a Turkish newspaper wrote about the video as promoting a "fundamentalist sect," General Sutton was called in and questioned by members of the Turkish General Staff.
"They had to give him a lesson in the separation of church and state," Weinstein says. "Imagine the propaganda bonanza! And how this upset Muslims."
The DOD report on the video recommended "appropriate corrective action" be taken against the officers. According to Army spokesman Paul Boyce, "The Army has not yet completed any planned actions associated with the Christian Embassy review."

The Christian Embassy (that "quasi-federal entity") has removed the "improperly taped" video from their website, but it is available at the MRFF site (TRT: 11:54). Note especially one Jack Catton, Major General, USAF, & "director on the joint staff," who states (@ 4:16 in): "I'm an old-fashioned American, and my first priority is my faith in God, then my family, then my country." Excuse me, General, did you not you swear some sort of oath to protect & preserve the Constitution? Do we want a guy w/ these priorities anywhere near a nuclear warhead? If he thinks his "god" has told him to nuke Mecca, is he going to do that, hide his family somewhere in Idaho, & then worry about what may happen to the U. S.? Or is it just nuke 'em all & let "god" sort 'em out after the rapture?

Weinstein – an intense, voluble attorney who prizes blunt, no-holds-barred language – has struck more than one nerve with his bird-dogging. He says numerous threats have been made on his life. Last week, the front window of his house was shot out for the second time. After the lawsuit was filed, talk of "fragging" (killing) Specialist Hall surfaced on some military blogs. The Army is investigating.

[...]

Several conservative Christian ministries publicly proclaim an evangelistic aim "to transform the nations of the world through the militaries of the world," and they are active at US military installations in many countries. (See: www.militaryministry.org or militarymissionsnetwork.org.)

Again we must ask, which is more dangerous to the American Way of Life™? Bearded, turbaned fundamentalist Islamic psychopaths hiding in a cave on the other side of the world, who think they can establish a caliphate by random acts of violence & destruction that are as likely as a bolt of lightning to hurt American citizens? Or slick-ass, media-savvy Christian fundamentalist psychopaths in suits & ties who are already too influential in our society, & hope to gain control of the world by controlling its militaries, w/ the eventual intention of destroying said world so their magical sky-fairy god can lead all of the "good" people to heaven? Which of these two groups are truly dangerous to us?