A college psychology professor's observations about public policy, mental health, sexual identity, and religious issues
Who made the potentially illegal robocalls? Watch this investigative report by WUSA:
Another interesting aspect of this report is Michael Peroutka’s spokesperson: Peter Waldron.
“Councilman Peroutka’s policy is not to comment on ongoing investigations,” said Peroutka spokesman Peter Waldron in an email to WUSA9.
Could this be the same Peter Waldron that worked for Michele Bachmann’s failed run for the Republican nomination for president in 2012?
As I reported recently, the League of the South president Michael Hill announced their plan to celebrate the life of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. Plans are apparently coming together for an April celebration in Maryland. According to Hunter Wallace:
We’ve been getting a lot of publicity from the media for announcing that we are going to hold a public celebration of Lincoln’s assassination, but it is something that many of us have done privately for years now.
Note: This event will be held in Baltimore on April 11th. It is pretty much our equivalent of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Contact me for details.
Maryland is home to the Institute on the Constitution and former League of the South board member Michael Peroutka. In addition, IOTC senior instructor David Whitney is chaplain of the Maryland/Virginia branch of the League. I wonder if Rev. Whitney will offer prayers at the event.
Michael Peroutka once said the Institute on the Constitution led him to involvement in the League of the South. Perhaps the IOTC could offer a session on the constitutional basis for assassination.
This weekend, the theocratic Institute on the Constitution will have a representative on the program at the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention. IOTC’s Jake MacAulay will share the stage with Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, possible presidential candidate Ben Carson, former Senator Rick Santorum, along with other elected officials.
It is sad that the conference will spill over to Martin Luther King Day on the 19th with IOTC as a part of it. The IOTC teaches that civil rights legislation should never have been passed, and that King, Jr. was not a champion of civil rights. They also host an article on their website which justifies discrimination based on race, nationality, and religion. The founder of IOTC is a former board member of the segregationist League of the South, and senior instructor David Whitney is the chaplain of the Maryland-Virginia state branch of the League.
Originally, a speaker from the white nationalist group Council of Conservative Citizens was scheduled to speak but has been scrubbed from the program. I asked the Coalition if they are aware about the IOTC’s teachings, but have not received a reply as yet.
Conservative executive at the Family Research Council Gen, Jerry Boykin cancelled an event with the IOTC when he learned about their views. However, it appears that the IOTC is making headway among religious right conservatives.
In 2012, the National Religious Broadcasters Network aired the Institute on the Constitution’s 12 part course on the Constitution. The NRB took some heat over that choice, including the threat of a boycott from a group of pastors in the Cincinnati Ohio area. The same group of pastors threatened a boycott of publisher Thomas Nelson over David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies.
Near the end of the series, the NRB sent a mixed message about the future of the IOTC on the network. I honestly thought the NRB might not rebroadcast the series based on the controversy and the serious errors in the series. However, the twelve-part series is being broadcast currently on Thursday nights at 9am, Session 10 is slated to run this Thursday.
The Cincinnati pastors were unaware that the series was being rebroadcast and, although disappointed, at this late date do not plan any action. Given the errors and theocratic aims of the IOTC, I too am disappointed that NRB’s viewers will be misled. I contacted the NRB representatives a week ago with no reply.
To review the problems with the IOTC’s teachings, see the following posts:
Institute on the Constitution Doubles Down on Exploitation of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1/5/2015)
Institute on the Constitution Rep Argues Against the Constitution on Religious Test Clause (12/12/2014)
Institute on the Constitution Uses Spurious George Washington Quote to Mislead Followers (12/8/2014)
Michael Peroutka: “I Wish I Was in Dixie” is the National Anthem (7/26/2014)
The Institute on the Constitution’s Imaginary Constitution (7/14/2014)
Michael Peroutka: Civil Rights Laws Should Never Have Been Passed (11/7/2013)
Michael Peroutka’s Martin Luther King Remix (9/12/2013)
Institute on the Constitution Uses Fake George Washington Quote on Second Amendment (9/6/2013)
Institute on the Constitution: Post-Civil War Amendments Helped Undo The Bill Of Rights (9/5/2013)
Institute on the Constitution: R. L. Dabney on Civil Government and Civil Rights (8/29/2013)
On Monday, I wrote about the Institute on the Constitution’s distortion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s work and mission. The IOTC accuses those who cast King, Jr. as a civil rights champion of revising history. I addressed the basic problems in their arguments yesterday. Each day this week, I will post a link to another speech or article from King, Jr. which makes his position clear. Yesterday, I posted segments of his speech titled “Give Us the Ballot.” Today, I am posting a speech delivered in Montgomery, AL on March 25, 1965 titled “Our God is Marching On.”
King marched for racial equality but he did not believe such an outcome would happen with laws requiring equal treatment alone. He also asked the federal government for assistance with housing, jobs and income. King Jr. did not limit his mission to “God-given rights.” Agree or disagree, the IOTC assertion that King, Jr. sought only God-given rights (by their definition) is betrayed by his frequent calls for government intervention in housing, and poverty.
King, Jr. said:
Let us therefore continue our triumphant march (Uh huh) to the realization of the American dream. (Yes, sir) Let us march on segregated housing (Yes, sir) until every ghetto or social and economic depression dissolves, and Negroes and whites live side by side in decent, safe, and sanitary housing. (Yes, sir) Let us march on segregated schools (Let us march, Tell it) until every vestige of segregated and inferior education becomes a thing of the past, and Negroes and whites study side-by-side in the socially-healing context of the classroom.
Let us march on poverty (Let us march) until no American parent has to skip a meal so that their children may eat. (Yes, sir) March on poverty (Let us march) until no starved man walks the streets of our cities and towns (Yes, sir) in search of jobs that do not exist. (Yes, sir) Let us march on poverty (Let us march) until wrinkled stomachs in Mississippi are filled, (That’s right) and the idle industries of Appalachia are realized and revitalized, and broken lives in sweltering ghettos are mended and remolded.
That King was a champion of civil rights is beyond dispute.
Now it is not an accident that one of the great marches of American history should terminate in Montgomery, Alabama. (Yes, sir) Just ten years ago, in this very city, a new philosophy was born of the Negro struggle. Montgomery was the first city in the South in which the entire Negro community united and squarely faced its age-old oppressors. (Yes, sir. Well) Out of this struggle, more than bus [de]segregation was won; a new idea, more powerful than guns or clubs was born. Negroes took it and carried it across the South in epic battles (Yes, sir. Speak) that electrified the nation (Well) and the world.
Yet, strangely, the climactic conflicts always were fought and won on Alabama soil. After Montgomery’s, heroic confrontations loomed up in Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, and elsewhere. But not until the colossus of segregation was challenged in Birmingham did the conscience of America begin to bleed. White America was profoundly aroused by Birmingham because it witnessed the whole community of Negroes facing terror and brutality with majestic scorn and heroic courage. And from the wells of this democratic spirit, the nation finally forced Congress (Well) to write legislation (Yes, sir) in the hope that it would eradicate the stain of Birmingham. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave Negroes some part of their rightful dignity, (Speak, sir) but without the vote it was dignity without strength.
Others knew him as a “civil rights agitator:”
My people, my people, listen. (Yes, sir) The battle is in our hands. (Yes, sir) The battle is in our hands in Mississippi and Alabama and all over the United States. (Yes, sir) I know there is a cry today in Alabama, (Uh huh) we see it in numerous editorials: “When will Martin Luther King, SCLC, SNCC, and all of these civil rights agitators and all of the white clergymen and labor leaders and students and others get out of our community and let Alabama return to normalcy?”