Institute on the Constitution – Page 13

League of the South Board Member Speaks to Florida Public High School Student Group

The Institute on the Constitution did not succeed in getting their course on the Constitution in the Springboro (OH) school district but they may have found a way into a public school in Florida. According to posts on the IOTC Facebook page, director of IOTC and League of the South board member Michael Peroutka spoke to the American Club at Spanish River High School in Boca Raton, FL. Watch:

Post by Institute on the Constitution.

According to the young man in the video, the club wants to work more with IOTC. Here is a bit more about the IOTC plans at Spanish River. I suspect there will be some folks in the area who will not be excited about the prospects of IOTC in the high school.
For more on IOTC click here.
Spanish River Community High School was in the news back in February when the school principal stopped a presentation by Bradlee Dean, founder of You Can Run But You Can’t Hide. The same club — the American Club — was involved in that Dean was invited by the students in that club to speak at the school. According to World Net Daily, Dean was eventually allowed to give his speech after a letter from Liberty Counsel claiming discrimination was delivered to the school. Jake MacAulay used to work for You Can Run but now works for Michael Peroutka.

League Of The South Board Member Speaks To Larry Klayman's Reclaim America Now Rally

The secessionist, neo-Confederate organization League of the South was represented at Larry Klayman’s Reclaim America Now rally in Washington, D.C. According to Klayman, the rally sought to clean house in Washington:

Freedom Watch and its founder Larry Klayman call upon all Tea Party, conservative, libertarian, and other groups and persons, indeed to all patriotic citizens, to converge on Washington D.C., en masse, on November 19, 2013, and demand the resignations of President Barack Hussein Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Speaker John Boehner.

Klayman predicted millions would show up to demand Obama’s resignation. The highest attendance figure I have seen (Washington Times) is 200. Clearly Klayman didn’t meet his goal.
On the program was Michael Peroutka, board member of the League of the South. In 2012, while speaking to the League of the South, Peroutka declared his agreement with the League of the South’s objective to have the Southern states secede. Watch his remarks on Tuesday here:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ludQu2Xgj3Y[/youtube]
In this clip, Peroutka says America was founded upon “the biblical view of law and government” and lauds Klayman for setting up the rally to reclaim that view.
According to Time magazine report, Klayman is giving Obama until November 29 to vacate the office. If not, he will attempt to force him out.

North Carolina GOP Senate Candidate Bill Flynn Is Institute On The Constitution Host

So says The American View website:

Our Institute On The Constituion Host Bill Flynn in Triad region of North Carolina announced his candidacy for the United States Senate race this past Sunday. Bill hosts a morning radio show on WEGO (980 AM). Bill has not only taught our U.S. Constitution course he was my co-host on the Constitutional Cruise, All Aboard America this past March. Bill is a good friend and patriot.

The Institute on the Constitution is directed by Michael Peroutka, a board member of the neo-Confederate and secessionist group the League of the South. The League has been toxic to at least one sitting Senat or (Rand Paul) and may be for Flynn as well. The IOTC displays website articles which defends racial discrimination, promotes a justification for slavery, savages Abraham Lincoln, and claims that the Confederacy was in the right. The GOP field is crowded with Flynn being a later entry so it is unclear if he will get much traction.

Michael Peroutka: Civil Rights Laws Should Never Have Been Passed

Speaking on the Steve Deace Show Tuesday, Institute on the Constitution Director and League of the South Board member Michael Peroutka criticized the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which adds sexual orientation to existing civil rights protections. However, his criticism did not end there. He added at 30:22 into the first hour:

The civil government has no authority to tell any private employer what kind of employees to hire and fire, or what constitutes discrimination. And obviously, I do mean and I would include the so-called civil rights laws are not law, they never should’ve been passed, they’re not law now, they weren’t law then, they aren’t law now because there is no such thing as a civil right.

Despite Peroutka’s past efforts to wrap himself with the legacy of Martin Luther King, here Peroutka’s views of King’s work and discrimination more broadly come through. Peroutka has gone so far as to claim that King did not seek civil rights. However, King clearly rejected Barry Goldwater’s view of the Civil Rights Act which is a position quite similar to the one Peroutka espoused on the Deace program. Peroutka’s views expressed on this radio show are consistent with an article on his website which justifies discrimination based on race, religion and/or nationality.
One might dismiss Peroutka as without much influence, however, to me, this would be shortsighted. Peroutka’s organization Institute on the Constitution continues to make inroads in the tea party and religious right. Furthermore, Steve Deace, while far to the right in relation to the rest of the nation, seems to be mainstream in Iowa. It is alarming and disappointing to hear a voice of the right wing of the GOP in IA lament the passage of civil rights laws which protect the civil rights of all Americans.
HT: Right Wing Watch.

Wheaton's Inhabit Conference: Race and the Christian Nation Question

I am hearing good things about the Inhabit conference held at Wheaton College this past weekend. I had wanted to attend but couldn’t due to a previous commitment. One topic of discussion at the conference was the problem of the Christian nation concept.
John Fea notes that the Christian nation theory is offensive to many African-American evangelicals. Here is a taste:

On Friday evening I was inspired by the Wheaton Gospel Choir and messages by Pastor Ray, Chris Beard of Peoples Church in Cincinnati, and Bryan Loritts, the pastor of a multiracial church in Memphis. (Loritts is a big Jonathan Edwards fan and was very excited to meet Marsden. He had just finished Marsden’s biography of Edwards and was now reading some of Noll’s work). The evangelical African-American community is deeply offended by the notion, made popular by Christian nationalists such as David Barton, that the United States needs to somehow “return” or “go back” to its so-called Christian roots. They view America’s founding as anything but Christian. Many of the founding fathers owned slaves. When the founders had the chance to choose the nation over the end of slavery (1776 and 1787) they always chose the former. Slavery is embedded in the Constitution. Indeed, the entire debate over whether the United States is a Christian nation is a white Protestant evangelical issue. One would be hard pressed to find an African-American evangelical who wants to return to what Christian Nationalists often describe as the golden age of American Christianity.

Rev. Beard’s experience as a minister in Cincinnati illustrates Fea’s observations:

Beard’s Peoples Church seems to have made the most striking reversal on the Christian America question. As a member of the Assembly of God denomination, Beard taught his congregation that the founders were Christians, that America was a Christian Nation, and that patriotism was almost inseparable from the Kingdom of God. He even had David Barton speak at his church. But after reading folks like Noll and Marsden, and looking more closely at the historical record, Beard changed his mind. He made a deliberate attempt to reject Christian nationalist teaching, build an international and multiracial congregation, and subordinate his patriotism to the Kingdom of God. He lost a lot of his church in the process, but he has rebuilt it into an even stronger congregation.

Beard’s views certainly motivated his opposition to The Jefferson Lies when it came out, as well as to the recent surge of interest in the Institute on the Constitution and League of the South.