Matthew 7:4

Who'd-a thunk the paragons of Christian virtue are out-and-out corrupt? Is it time to start removing the planks in your eyes yet, gentlemen?

From "They're Knee-Deep In The Jack Abramoff Scandal" on www.defconamerica.org:


How The Religious Right Did Abramoff's Dirty Work

Ralph Reed: Former executive director, The Christian Coalition:

“We believe gambling is a cancer on the American body politic. It is stealing food from the mouths of children…and turning wives into widows.”

— The Christian Century, 2/17/1996

• Between 1999 and 2003 Reed played a key role in several campaigns to benefit Indian gambling interests represented by Abramoff. (Washington Post, March 13, 2005)
• Reed received over $1 million in 1999 from Abramoff’s client the Mississippi Choctaw tribe. The fees covered radio ads, postcards, phone banks, a rally, as well as inserts in church bulletins that Reed had organized to defeat a state lottery and video poker proposal in Alabama, which the Choctaw feared would compete with their casino in Mississippi. (Atlanta Journal Constitution, June 26, 2005)
• Between 2001 and 2002 Reed received over $4 million from Abramoff and his associates to organize campaigns against Indian casinos and other gambling ventures that competed with Abramoff’s Indian casino clients – the Louisiana Coushatta tribe and the Mississippi Choctaws. (New York Times, May 1, 2005; National Journal, Sept. 18, 2004)

James Dobson: Founder and chairman of the board, Focus on the Family

"Clearly, gambling is a destroyer that ruins lives and wrecks families.”

— The Sun Herald (Biloxi, MS), 9/1/2003

• Dobson played a key role in defeating an Alabama state lottery proposal in 1999 and was also involved in scuttling the Jena Band of Choctaws’ plan to build a Louisiana casino in 2002. Both campaigns were designed by Abramoff to benefit his gambling-related clients. (Denver Post, June 23, 2005, Washington Post, March 13, 2005)
• In 1999 Abramoff’s client the Mississippi Choctaw paid to air ads featuring Dobson that criticized an Alabama lottery proposal. The ads were part of a strategy to limit competition to the Choctaw’s Mississippi casino. (Denver Post, June 23, 2005)
• Dobson recorded phone banking messages, lobbied high-level officials and recorded ads as part of a 2002 campaign bankrolled by Abramoff’s client and casino owner, the Louisiana Coushatta tribe, to kill the Jena Band’s plans to build a competing casino in Louisiana. (Washington Post, March 13, 2005)

Louis P. Sheldon: Chairman and founder, Traditional Values Coalition.

"We are opposed to the spread of legalized gambling in our society because this behavior frequently leads to addictions, the destruction of families, and the abuse of children."

— Statement from the Traditional Values Coalition

• Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition received a $25,000 check directly from Abramoff’s client and online gambling outfit eLottery, as part of a campaign to stop the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act in 2000. (Washington Post, October 16, 2005)
• Sheldon lobbied members of Congress during 2000, encouraging them to oppose the bill on the grounds that it would actually encourage gambling. (Washington Post, October 16, 2005; October 18, 2005)
• “Sheldon got a private meeting with DeLay on July 13. ‘I told him I strongly opposed the bill,’ Sheldon told Congressional Quarterly at the time.” (Washington Post, October 16, 2005)