tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post4306525836748718764..comments2024-01-26T21:38:25.924-08:00Comments on Duane's PoeTree: Jake Cosmos Aller writesDuanesPoeTreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-27271268604531580332016-03-18T12:37:57.818-07:002016-03-18T12:37:57.818-07:00George Walker Bush was the son of US president Geo...George Walker Bush was the son of US president George Herbert Walker Bush. With the active support of the Christian Right, he became president himself in a controversial election in 2000. His opponent actually had more votes nationwide but narrowly lost Florida, which had enough electoral votes to give Bush the victory. After the al-Qaida terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC, Bush invaded Afghanistan (which was sheltering the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden) and then Iraq, falsely claiming that its leader Saddam Hussein had been involved in the terrorist attacks and was preparing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction to use against the US. These became the two longest wars in US history. DuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-14072033921892998732016-03-18T12:26:14.767-07:002016-03-18T12:26:14.767-07:00Jerry Falwell was an American evangelical Southern...Jerry Falwell was an American evangelical Southern Baptist pastor who at 22 founded the megachurch (a non-Catholic church with at least 2,000 people in average weekend attendance) Thomas Road Baptist Church (the largest independent Baptist church in the country, though it began with only 35 members) in Lynchburg, Virginia, Lynchburg Christian Academy (now Liberty Christian Academy) as a "segregation academy" and part of his church's ministry, and Liberty University, also in Lynchburg, which it claims is the world's largest Christian university, with some 13,00 residential students and 90,000 on line ; his Old Time Gospel Hour, founded when he started his church, made him a well-known televangelist (it became Thomas Road Live. In 1976 Falwell, going against the traditional American Baptist principle of separating religion and politics, embarked on a series of "I Love America" rallies across the US in order to raise awareness of social issues that disturbed him. Two years later Christian Voice, an American conservative advocacy group, was in the midst of an internal struggle for control which caused activists Paul Weyrich, Terry Dolan, Richard Viguerie, and Howard Phillips to leave, and the next year they asked Falwell to form Moral Majority (a name coined by Weyrich) as a rival organization. The organization was launched at James Robinson's Freedom Rally in Dallas, Texas. Falwell led the group, in association with members of his own Baptist Bible Fellowship. At its height Moral majority claimed over 4 million members and more than 2 million donors and consisted of four separate groups -- Moral Majority, Inc., its lobbying division; Moral Majority Foundation, its educational component and voter-registration arm; Moral Majority Legal defense Fund, its legal instrument for promoting its issues in the courts; and Moral Majority Political Action Committee, in support group for supporting political candidates. In 1987 the organization was incorporated within the Liberty Federation, and Falwell resigned his formal presidency two years later though he maintained an active role within the organization until it dissolved in 1989. Ironically, Falwell's father was a staunch atheist, and his grandfather was an agnostic entrepreneur and former bootlegger.<br />Pat Robertson, the son of Virginia senator A. Willis Robertson, was another prominent leader of the Christian Right with a strong talent for organizing. He founded the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach in 1960, which is broadcast in 71 languages in 180 countries, and its CBN Asia affiliate; the CBN Cable Network (renamed the Family Channel), but when it became so large that it endangered CBN's legal non-profit status he formed International Family Entertainment, Inc., with the ABC Family Channel as its main subsidiary, which carries his twice-daily 700 Club news program live; CBN University (now Regent University); the American Center for Law and Justice, which is associated with Regent's School of Law; and the 1.7 million member Christian Coalition, which he organized in the wake of his failed 1988 bid to get the Republican Party's presidential nomination. DuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.com