This initiative aims to "mobilize 800,000 American police officers as intelligence gatherers," writes Thomas Cincotta, the author of Platform for Prejudice. That would be a troubling and dangerous development since, as Cincotta points out, not many of these officers are trained in intelligence gathering.

Chip Berlet, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates who studies such militia groups, believes the possibility of violence is heightened in times like these, when fear of joblessness is high, the nation's racial demographics are changing, and America and its values are widely perceived to be under attack. All you need to push some people over the edge is an enemy seen as irredeemably evil. For many on the right, Obama has become that enemy. And there is clearly no point, Berlet says, in "having a conversation about policy if your opponent is evil." So rational discourse is shut down, and working in a truly bipartisan way becomes a bad joke.

Chip Berlet, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates, a think tank based in Somerville, Mass., said Hutaree's online writings suggest the group fits into a Christian apocalyptic ideology that believes the U.S. government is "in league with Satan" and "the chief agent of Satan is the Antichrist."

Senior analyst Chip Berlet with The Diane Rehm Show

"There are a number of regional factors that, over time and at various moments, helped the militia movement take hold in different parts of the country," says Chip Berlet, an analyst at Political Research Associates, a think tank in Somerville, Mass. "It certainly has emerged strongly in the upper Midwest."

Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a liberal-leaning nonprofit group that tracks far-right networks, said the Hutaree's philosophy was drawn from a populist strand that fuses fear of a conspiracy to create a one-world government with a belief that a war is imminent between Christians and the Antichrist, as described in the Bible's Book of Revelation.

We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in US history as illustrated by the Tea Party and Patriot movements. Will religious and progressive activists provide a voice and outlet for populist fear and anger or will these dispossessed voices find a home among the potentially violent elements of the far right?

Read PRA senior analyst Chip Berlet's cover story in February Progressive.

On Monday, the nine members of the Hutaree Militia were charged with, among other things, 'seditious conspiracy,' which carries a maximum of a life imprisonment if convicted. The incident has raised concerns over domestic terrorism and left many confused about Christian apocalyptic belief.

Increasingly, local police forces are engaging in intelligence activity. And this new and troubling role may greatly expand very soon, according to a new report by Political Research Associates entitled Platform for Prejudice.

The anti-homosexuality bill now before Uganda's Parliament has an American genesis of sorts, inspired to a large extent by the visits of U.S. evangelicals who are involved with a movement that promotes Christianity's role in getting homosexuals to become "ex-gays" through prayer and faith. Ugandan supporters of the bill appear to be particularly impressed by the ideas of Scott Lively, a California conservative preacher who has written a book, The Pink Swastika, about what he calls the links between Nazism and a gay agenda for world domination, which, by itself, would have raised the anti-colonial sensitivities of Ugandan society.

Rachel Maddow Show - TIME Magazine

As the world celebrates Human Rights Day Thursday, Pastor Rick Warren should make his own contribution to human rights by denouncing Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009.Although homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda, the proposed law calls for the death penalty for people convicted of something called “aggravated homosexuality,” as well as life imprisonment sentences for being gay. If family, friends, teachers or counselors fail to report gay individuals, they too can be imprisoned.

When I woke up this morning I was able to watch President Obama accept his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. In his acceptance speech, he spoke to critics who think he should not receive the award, and he spoke of ways to build a lasting peace. Today marked the 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, at the United Nations, discussions were being held to celebrate the progress that has been made and also to highlight problems that still exist. One panel focused on rights violations on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Two panelists, Rev. Kapya Kaoma, an Anglican priest, and Victor Mukasa, co-founder of Sexual Minorities Uganda or SMUG, spoke out against the Anti-Homosexuality bill in Uganda.

Weeks after the Ugandan government proposed an anti-homosexuality bill that would sentence homosexuals to life imprisonment and, in some cases, to death, clergy and US government officials are finally starting to respond.   Anglican priest from Zambia, Rev. Kapya Kaoma, wrote about a meeting last March when the Family Life Network held a seminar that revealed: “LGBT people and activists are engaged in a well thought-out plan to take over the world.”

While revelations concerning the role that American conservatives played in spawning Uganda’s “anti-homosexuality bill” have focused largely on Rick Warren, the pastor at California’s Saddleback Church, and groups that offer a purported cures for homosexuality, many US right-wing organizations are promoting their ideology in Uganda and across Africa.

"The resurgence of these groups involves not only fear surrounding the economic collapse, but also anxiety around changing social and political relationships," Berlet said. “In a situation where you’re asking people to make substantial changes in the way they relate the world – and if you don’t take seriously the resulting anxiety and fear – then conspiracy theories are going to spread."

Right-wing demagogues reach out to a supposedly beleagured white middle class, telling them they are being squeezed by parasitic traitors from above and below.

?Chip Berlet has studied extremism, conspiracy theories and hate groups for more than 25 years. In a recent report for PublicEye.org, he says that the murders of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller and Holocaust Museum guard Stephen T. Johns exemplify the potential for violence that often lurks within extremist groups.?

?Experts say von Brunn's essays were mainstream within an extremist community that is split between the peaceful and violent factions. "He wasn't a leader of the movement, and his writings are remarkably unremarkable," says Chip Berlet, a researcher at the Massachusetts-based Political Research Associates, a group that studies extremist movements.?

Chip Berlet writes, ?People who believe conspiracist allegations sometimes act on those irrational beliefs, and this has concrete consequences in the real world. The [Holocaust Museum shooting] is a prime example of why it is a mistake to ignore bigoted conspiracy theories. Law enforcement needs to enforce laws against criminal behavior. Vicious bigoted speech, however, is often protected by the First Amendment.?

?By condensing the crucifixion narrative and combining Biblical quotes from two different places, (and including more problematic later Gospel accounts) the Manga restores the narrative of Jews as the Christ Killers rejected decades ago by most Christian leaders.?

PRA Senior Analyst Chip Berlet speaks with Talk Radio.

Chip Berlet writes, ?Right-wing pundits demonize scapegoated groups and individuals in our society, implying that it is urgent to stop the groups and individuals named by the pundits from wrecking the nation. Some angry people in the audience already believe conspiracy theories in which the same scapegoats are portrayed as subversive, destructive, or evil?

PRA Senior Analyst Chip Berlet speaks with Fox News Boston.

Any inconvenient facts are irrelevant. People who believe in a conspiracy theory "develop a selective perception, their mind refuses to accept contrary evidence," Chip Berlet, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates who studies such theories, says. "As soon as you criticize a conspiracy theory, you become part of the conspiracy."

Yet since the 2007 amendment defeat the national anti-gay groups have kept a low profile in Massachusetts; there are no visible signs they have been providing financial or organizational support to MFI. Pam Chamberlain, a researcher for the Somerville-based think tank Political Research Associates who focuses on monitoring anti-LGBT activism, said that groups like Focus on the Family are unlikely to sink money into Massachusetts while pro-equality politicians have a lock on political power. She cited news reports of Focus on the Family laying off workers as a result of the money they spent on the Prop 8 campaign.

In defending the "free market," speakers at February's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. championed small business and entrepreneurship. But they neglected the outsize role of multinational corporations in shaping the economy and how the lax regulation of financial behemoths created a worldwide economic crisis. Public Eye Editor Abby Scher discussed these and other intriguing CPAC stories with John Grebe of Sounds of Dissent radio on March 7.

...thinking has progressively found acceptance within both elements of the populist movement and fringe politics. According to investigative journalist Chip Berlet, the prominent origins of Bilderberger conspiracy theories can be traced to activist Phyllis Schlafly.

Undermining Obama; The Haggards Play Oprah; Coral Ridge Ministries Makeover; Focus on the Family turns to plagiarist Tim Goeglein; GOP’s Taliban Fever; and AFA’s Project Push Back.

Political Research Associates maintains one of the largest collections of COINTELPRO documents and its copies of heavily redacted FBI memos tell part of the story.

As journalist Frederick Clarkson observes, proclamations from Bill O'Reilly, claiming the existence of a leftist assault on Christmas, are "part of a transcendent politics of the Religious Right, and a variant of that old time McCarthism -- baiting everyone with whom they disagree as advocating a 'godless' agenda." Indeed, Billy James Hargis' Christian Crusade was making the same charges back in 1960 and much earlier in the year -- in July in fact.

?It’s a shame Obama has decided not to visit an Islamic institution or mosque because of all the perceptions about him,? said Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, which analyses right-wing networks.

Katherine Ragsdale with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights provides an excellent explanation of what the anti-religious folks are saying

In keeping with this year's festival theme, "Be the Change," organizers have brought in Massachusetts-based journalist and policy researcher Chip Berlet; ...

"The report is terrible," added Chip Berlet, senior analyst with Political Research Associates. "It is so unprofessional and ignorant of modern social...

Sharlet: Veteran Christian Right-watcher Frederick Clarkson reviews The Family for The Public Eye, the publication of Political Research Associates, a public think tank.

Researcher and writer Chip Berlet notes that LaRouche claimed he has no income ?although he lived in a huge mansion surrounded by armed guards...

With commentary by Chip Berlet, Bruce Wilson of the Huffington Post describes a new Christian comic book, now sold in major book stores, that contains "ghastly and horrific" portrayals of Jews.

Stonewall Communities Lifelong Learning Institute will hold its second program looking at the history of the Massachusetts Safe Schools movement on June 3 with a panel discussion called "Liberty & Justice for LGBT Students: What the Safe Schools Movement Teaches Us About Organizing." The panel, which will be held at Wheelock College, will feature Pam Chamberlain; John Auerbach, commissioner of the state Department of Public Health; and the Rev. Irene Monroe, a religion columnist and public theologian.

Jean Hardisty sat down with Meria Heller to talk about the Bush Administration's discriminatory marriage policies and much more.

In NYC, during the 2004 Republican National Convention, police violated the rights of thousands of protestors. We talk with people who exposed the abuses, and lawyers in the cities where the Democratic and Republican conventions will be held this summer, as they fight to prevent similar tactics. Abby Scher, Editor of Public Eye, presents this half-hour report for the nationally syndicated radio show Making Contact.

Chip Berlet explains how recent right-wing populist fears of a collectivist one-world government and new world order that fueled Cold War anticommunism, mobilized opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, and spawned the armed citizens militia movement in the 1990s, have resurfaced as an elaborate conspiracy theory about the alleged impending creation of a North American Union that would merge the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Yet, for every instance of loony racist paranoia, one finds a countervailing explanation for why Obama's rise is not a story about black America rising up. White supremacists are less inclined to hate Obama than the white race-traitors who are enabling him. "If you are a white supremacist who is dedicated to a biological understanding of racism that says blacks are inferior, the only way [Obama] could be elected is with the conniving of unseen forces," explains Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, a Boston-based expert on white supremacists.

"Many of the people had such huge egos that they didn't know how to work together and keep the movement going," Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at the Political Research Associates think tank, told the Times. "So it basically unraveled."

... going," said Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at the liberal Political Research Associates think tank who specializes in the study of right-wing networks. ...

According to Pam Chamberlain, senior researcher at Political Research Associates, a Massachusetts-based think tank that studies the religious right, the battle in Texas is part of a much larger and longer-running battle. "The k-12 education system has been fraught with controversy for decades," Chamberlain said, "reaching all the way back to the Scopes Trial in 1925. These battles don't take place just at the intersection of religion and science; there has been a concerted effort by conservative groups to put their imprint at all levels and on all subjects, including history, science, and civics."

"In the 1990s in particular, with the militia movement, you had all the rumors of black helicopters and jackbooted UN troops," says Chip Berlet, an analyst at the liberal, Somerville-based think tank Political Research Associates. "There was this sense that the secret elites behind the UN were the same secret elites who had been behind the Soviet Union."

"It's a complicated time for the Christian right. They regrouped after the last election and decided they won't be able to capture the presidency, so they are digging further into the grass roots for the future."

Were the values voters ever all the media cracked them up to be? Janine Jackson of the nationally syndicated radio show Counterspin asks PRA Research Director Tarso Luis Ramos.

PRA-Wire has been listed as a Featured Resource on the Religious Right Watch.

Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, an Episcopal priest who is executive director of Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank, said Republicans are caught between their message and human nature. "They're pretty much stuck with their self-righteous moralizing," she said. "If you can't change the message and you can't change human nature, then you're pretty much left with how to batten down the hatches... when you are caught."

"Once you're in a group that has views that are outside the mainstream, you develop a sense of being the truth tellers against the false information in the outside world, and that binds you even closer to the group," said Chip Berlet, who studies the psychology of conspiracy theories, and who interviewed Ed Brown several times in the 1990s for a book. "The more people dismiss you, the more you're convinced you're right."

"Evangelicals have been working through the military and government agencies since the Cold War as part of the fight against 'Godless Communism', but they tried to follow certain boundaries" said Chip Berlet, a senior analyst of Political Research Associates in Boston. "With the Bush administration we've seen many egregious examples of officials stepping way out of line of any kind of boundary..."

In a Chicago Tribune article about Christian legal advocacy, Rev. Katherine H. Ragsdale weighed in on the American Center for Law and Justice's description of themselves as a counterpoint to the ACLU. "The ACLU represents tolerance, freedom and protection of the Constitution, whereas these folks represent intolerance, oppression and the dismantling of our constitutional freedoms," she said.

Examines the various conspiracy theories espoused on the Internet, in articles and in public forums that attempt to explain the 9/11 attacks. It includes theories that the World Trade Center was brought down by a controlled demolition; that a missile, not a commercial airliner, hit the Pentagon; and that members of the U.S. government orchestrated the attacks in hopes of creating a war in the Middle East. Each conspiracy argument is countered by a variety of experts in the fields of engineering, intelligence and the military. The program also delves into the anatomy of such conspiracies and how they grow on the Internet.

Well Operation Save America came, they saw, they harassed, and they annoyed; but they did not close the clinic. The clinic stayed open, no patients were turned away, and the doors never closed. We remain victorious. And that victory is a good thing ? but, make no mistake, even though OSA has gone home; our work is not done.

His adherents regard Lyndon LaRouche as the greatest mind of the past 300 years, at very least. "I'm probably the best economist in the world today," as LaRouche told The Washington Post in 1985, reports Scott McLemee in Insidehighered.com. And now he is recruiting among university students again. "Give me 1,000 youth leaders like these," LaRouche announced in 2003, "and I'll take over the country."

Are Latino gangs targeting blacks in a rampage of "ethnic cleansing"? PRA Research Director Tarso Lu?s Ramos challenges this myth on the radio show Urban Journal.

In a new article for Colorlines magazine, PRA research director Tarso Lu?s Ramos takes on a deluge of news stories claiming that Latino gangs are "ethnically cleansing" their African American neighbors in Los Angeles. Yet, Ramos argues in "L.A. Story," while there is some racially motivated violence, it is far from "ethnic cleansing" and progressives should stop promoting the myth. In fact, one of the key proponents of the idea contributes book reviews to the website of right wing culture warrior David Horowitz. And the media distortion both fans the flames of racialized conflict and builds the Right's power as the Minuteman and other anti-immigrant forces attempt to highjack our understanding of the disturbing gang conflict in L.A. neighborhoods.

Fundamentalist preachers and doctrines have been part of the American landscape for a long time. Starting May 15, David Barsamian's Alternative Radio Project is syndicating a speech by PRA Senior Analyst Chip Berlet where he discusses Christian apocalyptic thinking, historically and today. In recent years, starting with Billy Graham, apocalyptic thinkers have moved prominently into the political arena, contributing to debate on domestic and foreign policy. Take Pastor John Hagee, a Texas-based evangelical who broadcasts on radio and TV, who has said, "The United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plans for both Israel and the West's biblically prophesized end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to Rapture, Tribulation and the Second Coming of Christ."

Just in time for tax day: In a radio collaboration with the syndicated weekly show "Making Contact," Public Eye Editor Abby Scher investigates how the traditional conservatives in the Heritage Foundation wooed the Christian Right to support tax cuts for the wealthy. Airing on a public or community radio station near you this week.

PRA Senior Analyst Chip Berlet, an internationally known expert on the political cult leader Lyndon LaRouche, has been assisting the mother of a young British man found dead after trying to leave a conference sponsored by a LaRouche-related group in March 2003 in Germany. In a new development, on Tuesday, March 27, new forensic findings concluding that Jeremiah Duggan, 22, had been beaten to death while trying to defend himself from attack will be presented in London to government officials in the UK with a request for a new inquest by Germany. Jeremiah had traveled to Germany to attend an anti-war conference that turned out to be sponsored by the LaRouchites, who have a history of spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories. Soon after Jeremiah told the conference he was Jewish and was concerned by the rhetoric he was hearing, he was found dead.

PRA senior analyst Chip Berlet led the update of the entry on "Neo-Nazism" in the second edition of the multi-volume Encyclopaedia Judaica published in March 2007 by Macmillan Reference USA. Neo-Nazism, the 8200-word entry reads, is "a general term for the related fascist, nationalist, white supremacist, antisemitic beliefs and political tendencies of the numerous groups that emerged after World War II seeking to restore the Nazi order or to establish a new order based on doctrines similar to those underlying Nazi Germany."

PRA Researcher Director Tarso Lu?s Ramos contributed to Colorlines magazine's coverage of "The "Colorblind" Attack on Your Health" in its March/April 2007 issue. "Conservative activists do not deny the existence of inequality [in health between whites and people of color]," writes the article's author, Kai Wright. "To the contrary, says Tarso Lu?s Ramos, research director of Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank, they nominally share anti-racists' outrage over the gaps. 'The rhetoric acknowledges disparities and even decries them on one hand, and on the other hand rejects proposals to reduce these disparities,' Ramos says.

Undoing Reproductive Freedom: Christian Right NGOs Target the United Nations addresses a frightening and increasingly effective trend in anti-woman organizing. Compiled by Political Research Associates (PRA), a Boston-based nonprofit research center that has monitored the religious and secular right wing for 25 years, the report zeroes in on a host of conservative Christian groups that have turned their gaze on international affairs. Read the review.

'New Front in the Culture War: Gay Rights Sacrificed on the Altar of the Mid-Term Elections' by Chip Berlet

For the best blogging on the Christian Right's Values Voter Summit Sept. 22-24 from PRA staff and others, visit People for an American Way.

PRA Senior Analyst Chip Berlet is making news debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories. See his commentary in the media below:

The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090701669.html

Washington Jewish Week
http://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=14&ArticleID=5822&TM=53219.57

Interview by Patt Morrison of 89.3 KPCC
http://www.scpr.org/programs/pattmorrison/index.shtml

Chip Berlet unravels the rapturous response of Christian Zionists to the Lebanon war, in September's Z Magazine.

Chip Berlet reports on thenation.com that White Supremacist groups are finding a new home in anti-immigrant movements.

PRA's Senior Reseacher recently spoke on Lyndon LaRouche at the 2006 International Cultic Studies Association conference in Denver, CO. The entire speech is available for your listening pleasure here.

In the July 18th issue, The Advocate quotes PRA Executive Director Katherine Ragsdale in an enlightening article on gay advertising boycotts. Pick up a copy at newsstands today.

On Monday, PRA's Executive Director, Katherine Ragsdale, was in Washington, D.C. Monday to speak at the Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom conference. The Rev. Ragsdale was the opening speaker and moderated a panel on Faith and Choice. Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedome is an interfaith, multicultural program of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Today, June 6, at approximately 2:40 PM, Chip Berlet will be interviewed on Washington Post radio by Sam Leitinger. The discussion will be concerning America's fascination with conspiracy theories.

PRA senior analyst Chip Berlet was quoted in the Washington Post on Monday June 6, 2006, in a story by Shankar Vedantam, "Born With the Desire to Know the Unknown," that looked at the widespread attraction of conspiracy theories highlighted by public interest in the "Da Vinci Code" movie. Berlet also wrote a blog entry on the "DaVinci Code" at the Talk2Action website that mentioned conspiracy theories: "Decoding The Da Vinci Code: Causa Merdae Flabellum Incursandae"

On April 25, PRA's Executive Director, Katherine H. Ragsdale, will be a featured speaker at the "Faith and Choice" forum in Albany, NY. The theme of the forum will be "Causes in Common"; the current overlapping of issues challenging those concerned with reproductive health and justice and those working on the health and rights of gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual people. The speakers will also specifically address the strong role that clergy and people of faith have played in both of these movements. Joining the Rev. Ragsdale as a speaker will be Ross Levi, Director of Public Policy and Governmental Affairs for the Empire State Pride Agenda and Foundation. The forum will be sponsored by the Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood and the Albany VOX Chapter.

PRA staff member Pam Chamberlain is set to present two workshops at the conference From Abortion Rights to Social Justice, at Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, April 7-9, 2006

March 25-27, 2006. Newark, NJ. "Facing a Challenge Within: A Progressive Scholars' and Activists' Conference on Anti-Semitism & The Left."? National conference with Chip Berlet co-hosting workshop, "Jewish Power in Right-wing and Left-wing Imaginations: Convergence, Conspiracies, and Cautions," with author Esther Kaplan.

PRA staff researcher Pam Chamberlain represents PRA at the NYU Law School Conference on medicine and morality and the Political Right, on March 10, 2006.

February 24-25, 2006. Washington, D.C. Spirit House. Berlet will help lead a two-day seminar on the Christian Right with Spirit House director Ruby Sales. There will be a special emphasis on the issue in the Black Christian community.

Pam Chamberlain has been meeting with reproductive rights advocates to collect informtion for a new research project examining the globalization of restrictions on reproductive rights promoted by the Christian Right in the United States.

Michelle Goldberg in Salon pens an informative article, "How the secular humanist grinch didn't steal Christmas." Here is the section with the quote: "You have a dynamic here, where you have the Christian right hysterically overrepresenting the problem, and then anecdotally you have some towns where lawyers restrict any kind of display or representation of religion, which is equally absurd," says Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates and one of the foremost experts on the religious right. "It's a closed loop. In that dynamic, neither the secular humanists or the ACLU are playing a role."

Young People For, a campus activism project of People for the American Way, quoted from Pam Chamberlain's recent piece "Conservative Campus Organizing" in its email blast, YF4 Update. "If conservative students are silencing debate on your campus, let us know, and we can help you do something about it," Young People For offers.

The December issue of Vanity Fair has an amazing article on Tim LaHaye by Craig Unger where he details a trip to the Middle East Holy Land hosted by LaHaye. Unger quotes Chip as saying: "Conservative Think Tanks like the Heritage FOundation want to roll back the New Deal. LaHaye wants to roll back the Enlightenment." p. 217.

PRA researcher Chip Berlet was interviewed by LiP Magazine on the topic of "political correctness."

On Monday, Oct. 31, PRA Senior Analyst Chip Berlet will speak at Boston University's Protocols conference marking the 100th anniversary of its publication. His topic is, "Protocols to the Left, Protocols to the Right: Conspiracism in American Political Discourse at the Turn of the Second Millennium."

Senior Analyst Chip Berlet will be speaking at the "Dominionism, Political Power, and the Theocratic Right" seminar October 21 and 22 at the Graduate Center at CUNY. A DVD from the last conference has just been made available, and ordering details can be found on the link.

PRA researcher Chip Berlet's new blog has been featured in a recent article in Bay Windows. Don't forget to check out the blog!

The Boston Globe publishes an opinion piece cowriten by Carol Rose of the Massachusetts ACLU and PRA's Chip Berlet. The topic is Mitt Romney's recently proposed "Fusion Center" security plan that has civil libertarians worried.

The Hartford Courant quotes PRA research Chip Berlet on Billy Graham.

PRA's Pam Chamberlain reminds us that on Pride Day this year, not to forget to keep on fighting the ever present homophobia still out there.

PRA's Chip Berlet was featured in a recent article in the L.A. Weekly on the rise of the Christian Right in dictating the policy of Corporate America.

FrontPage Magazine chimes in with a gratuitous attack on PRA's Chip Berlet on his recent talk at the "Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right" held at the City University of New York.

The conservative Washington Times panned the conference but found Chip's presentation informative.

The National Review linked to an article on the Public Eye website with the inaccurate claim that it was an example of blaming the entire Christian Right for the ideas of fringe Dominionist movements. The article by Fred Clarkson was actually a serious study of the Dominionist Christian Reconstructionist movement.

I must admit, when I first heard about the recently-released Jemmott study on the success of an abstinence-only program for young adolescents, I was tempted to pour over the published evaluation in hopes of finding a way to discredit the results.