Good Guys

The Interfaith Working Group is a pretty nifty group. Read their Web site's opening statement:

"We believe that the characterization of religion as inherently conservative, and the subsequent portrayal of social debates as disagreements between the religious and the areligious undermine faith in religious institutions and the ideal of religious diversity.

Our mission is to inform the public of the diversity of religious opinion on social issues where it is not widely recognized by providing a voice and a forum for religious organizations, congregations and clergy in the Philadelphia area who support gay rights, reproductive freedom, and the separation of church and state."

The Radical "Religious" Right
The Ridiculous Right on parade, with propaganda by organization.

American Civil Liberties Union
Working to protect the Constitution and the civil rights it bestows on us. Includes hot-button topics like the death penalty, flag burning, lesbian and gay rights, and immigration. Also has the text of the Constitution so that you can read it for yourself.

People for the American Way
Organization devoted to preserving civil rights and opposing the Radical Right's extremist agenda. Includes an interesting "Scary Quote" section.

Interfaith Alliance
Mainstream organization providing clergy and all concerned citizens with an alternative voice to the Radical Ridiculous Right.

Resources

Bible Gateway gives on-line access to search the Bible. Particularly interesting is the "What The Bible Says About... - search over 22,000 topics" section. (Be cautious in interpreting the results of these searches, however, as putting in "homosexual" returns relevant references but without the surrounding context, such as the cleanliness codes.) The site even has support for multiple languages in addition to English: German, Swedish, Latin, French, Spanish, and Tagalog.

Why Fundamentalism is Wrong is a wonderful examination of the thinking (or lack thereof) of people like Priscilla, Queen of the Northwest.

The Bible And Christianity -- The Historical Origins is a fascinating history of the origins of the Bible.

Radical Right

Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum
That right-wing wench and her take on the world. (For true irony, remember that she has a simpering grown gay son -- who, last I heard, was still living with her.) "We support using the newest technology to build a strong ballistic missile defense. We oppose weakening the military by putting women and open homosexuals in combat assignments." Another quote from the site: "In a ten-year battle, Mrs. Schlafly led the pro-family movement to victory over the principal legislative goal of the radical feminists, called the Equal Rights Amendment." I guess she's referring to those FemiNazis, who want equal rights.

The "Christian" Coalition
Actually a nice-looking site, considering their idiotic stances on homosexuality.

"Family" Research Council
Arch-conservative "Christian" organization "defending family, faith and freedom." You can search their archives on homosexuality, plus see their narrow definition of "family." It has a nice set of links to other far-right organizations, and more mainstream ones like the Army.

American "Family" Association
Run by the "Reverend" Don Wildmon. These people are really scary. They're so right-wing their home page used to have a "Homosexuality Report" button. Now it's toned down to just one item under "Just The Facts On..."

Government

Written by John Jay, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers have been dubbed the greatest public relations campaign of all time -- setting the stage in the public's mind to adopt the U.S. Constitution! It's kind of heavy reading, but amazing the level of political discourse in the general public. Certainly better than the demagoguery that we have today.

FedWorld
Link to legislation, jobs, IRS forms, demographic information -- all sorts of stuff.

Militia/"Patriot" Movement

If this doesn't yet sound familiar, think about current events like the Freemen in Montana or the alleged links of alleged Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to the militia movement. Read on.

We have also read that the Patriot Movement is largely comprised of extreme white supremacists, who have set aside some philosophical differences to band together with more mainstream groups such as tax protesters or whatever. So, here we present to you both (1) excerpts from a report that labels the Patriot movement as dangerously extremist and (2) some of the main sites of the Patriot movement itself. Decide for yourself.

Note: Be forewarned -- some of the sites may offend you.

Excerpts from an anti-Patriot report

Patriot WWW pages

Patriot Usenet discussion groups
(Note: Some Web browsers will not correctly take you from the WWW into a Usenet newsgroup. If this happens to you, just jot down the name of the group you are interested in, go into Usenet, and type it in.)