The Republican Party aligned - Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) has teamed up over the last year with the right-wing site FrontPage Magazine to increase the visibility of their on-going campaign to destabilize mainline churches.
IRD, as a refresher, is a conservative political group set-up in the early 1980s by Republican activists who aimed to silence Christian voices opposed to the Reagan administration's foreign and domestic policies. The group is funded by extremists such as Richard Mellon Scaife. Their ongoing goal: to actually take over mainline churches, silence those prophetic voices still speaking out against war and economic injustice, and to use the resources of Christian churches to promote the conservative political agenda.
FrontPage Magazine is operated by David Horowitz. Horowitz, a former 60s radical who converted to the conservative cause in the 80s, is an icon of the political right and in recent years has had to fight off serious charges of racism and of fabricating events for his stories. Despite concerns over Horowitz he remains an influential voice among conservatives.
Horowitz's online magazine is now running articles written by IRD spokesman Mark Tooley. Tooley, who worked for the CIA before joining IRD, has used his columns on FrontPage Magazine to declare that United Methodist Bishops are anti-American for opposing President Bush's policies in Iraq, to attack the National Council of Churches, and to attack the United Church of Christ and the World Council of Churches.
Tooley's writings opposing gay rights were reprinted on a Klu Klux Klan website this past summer (the KKK even endorsed an IRD anti-gay rally)- a mark of how extremist and anti-Christian his views on moral issues are.
The marriage of IRD and David Horowitz is one made somewhere besides heaven.
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