Civil & Human Rights

Eli Clifton at Salon has an exposé on the secret agenda of the Christian Right  — not so secret, reporters are just loath to report on religious extremism for fear of reflexively being accused of  being anti-religion — and how this extremist movement is funded in part by Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby’s secret agenda: How it’s quietly funding a vast right-wing movement:

Hobby Lobby says it’s just trying to protect its religious freedom . . .

But a document published here for the first time reveals Hobby Lobby appears to be going much further than protecting freedom, providing funding for a group that backs a political network of activist groups deeply engaged in pushing a Christian agenda into American law. The document shows entities related to the company to be two of the largest donors to the organization funding a right-wing Christian agenda, investing tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars into a vast network of organizations working in concert to advance an agenda that would allow businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians and deny their employees contraceptives under a maximalist interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause of the United States Constitution.

That network of activist groups has succeeded in passing legislation in Arizona requiring women to undergo an ultrasound before an abortion, banning taxpayer-funded insurance paying for government employees’ abortions, defining marriage as a union between a man and woman, and funding abstinence education. And there’s evidence that its efforts go well beyond the borders of the Copper State.

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I posted on this topic earlier this year, Time for the restoration of ex-felon voting rights, when Rep. Martín J. Quezada (D-Phoenix) introduced HB 2132 (.pdf), a bill to restore the franchise to ex-felons, which never got a hearing.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has called  for the repeal of these Jim Crow era laws that disenfranchise millions of ex-felons from voting. Among his strongest allies is Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).

It turns out that Arizona Attorney General Tom “banned for life by the SEC” Horne, who recently made the baseless claim that he believes there “has been what I consider to be a media cover-up of the extent to which voter fraud is a problem in Arizona,” is a big fan of Jim Crow voter disenfranchisement. Think Progress reports, Arizona Attorney General: If Those Convicted Of A Crime Can Vote, Politicians Will Campaign On Robbery:

Politicians who have imposed a raft of suppressive voter laws over the past few years have justified those laws under claims of voter fraud. But asked to provide evidence of alleged fraud, even those who have undertaken expensive investigations have come up with very little.

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During an interview on NewsMax with former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne (R) was asked about [an Iowa] case, and moves to automatically restore the voting rights of those who have completed their sentences.

He warned, “I can just picture politicians appealing to the convicted felons’ vote by saying that they’ll legalize bank robbery or whatever. It doesn’t really make sense to permit convicted felons to vote.”

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