Yesterday, the Family Research Council, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and National Right to Life hosted a public press call explaining their opposition to the Senate health care legislation. Their press release said that they wanted to “showcase a united pro-life movement opposed to the abortion funding and mandate provisions as well as the lack of conscience protections within the health care bill.”

The pro-life movement certainly isn’t united on the side of these three organizations though. If anything, it’s united on the side of passing health care reform. In the past couple weeks, the Catholic Health Association, prominent Catholic theologians, and “60 leaders of religious orders representing 59,000 Catholic nuns” broke with the bishops and called for the passage of the Senate legislation, decrying the “false” information on the abortion provisions being spread by health care opponents.

On the press call yesterday, Richard Doerflinger, Associate Director of the USCCB Secretariat of Pro Life Activities, dismissed these other Catholic organizations and individuals. He said that the nuns don’t represent every single nun in the United States (as if the USCCB represents the position of every single bishop out there), and remarked that these other groups just aren’t able to grasp complicated policies like the bishops can:

DOERFLINGER: Like us, they [the Catholic Health Association] have been very anxious to have health care reform for many years. Unlike us, they don’t have policy people that work specifically on the legal and policy aspects of these pro-life issues, in particular. I asked them, in fact, for their analysis of why our analysis is mistaken. … And I asked them for their work on that three days ago, and I haven’t gotten anything yet. I think they’re not focusing on it. … I just don’t think they’ve done the analysis we have. [...]

The signatures that were on that statement [by the nuns] were by the Superiors; they later clarified that they don’t necessarily speak for all the Sisters that are in their orders, just for themselves. 59,000 is total number of nuns in the United States. … It’s not every nun in the United States by any means.

In the long run, we have to have a lot of discussions in the church about how to stay together on these things, rather than trying to neutralize each other, especially when one organization in particular has the role of speaking for the moral voice of the church on these matters and also have the policy expertise of figuring out when legislation is acceptable to the church’s interests and our convictions. [...]

We’re not just an interest group that has an opinion; we’ve actually researched the facts, and we know how bad it is. That’s something that no other Catholic group can do in the depth that we’ve done it.

One of the bishops’ greatest allies on Capitol Hill right now, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), has similarly tried to dismiss the voices of women religious leaders in the debate on women’s rights, saying that he doesn’t listen to them. On Thursday, the National Catholic Reporter came out with an editorial endorsing health care reform, saying that CHA “actually knows how health care is provided at the ground level,” whereas the USCCB’s “inside-the-beltway analysis is focused on possible scenarios, many of them worst-case scenarios.” “That said, the bishops have to be clear that some of their talking points might lead honest observers to question their competence — or worse,” added the publication.

At an American Bankers Association summit last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) urged the bankers to fight financial reform. To make his point, he bashed people who work in Congress and called them “little punk staffers“:

“Don’t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you and stand up for yourselves,” Boehner said. “All of us are hearing from our friends and constituents on lack of credit, you can’t get a loan, the more your government takes and taxes, the more regulations you have to comply with the more cost you have there and less amount you are going to have available to loan to customers.”

White House National Economic Council Director Larry Summers fired back at Boehner, pointing out that the biggest problem in the financial system certainly isn’t that bankers do not have enough of a voice in the policy process. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) wrote Boehner a letter and called on him to apologize: “I am appalled that a Leader of the House, who must know what good work is done by our staffs, would take such an inaccurate cheap-shot at these people, for the purpose of ingratiating himself with bankers.” A House staffer told ThinkProgress today that Frank is now distributing “Little Punk Staffer” buttons to Hill aides, in a clear shot at Boehner’s insult.

Today’s Code Red rally appears to be one of the most raucous Tea Party gatherings on Capitol Hill yet. In addition to protesters shouting with rage at federal lawmakers, Sam Stein reports on some more disturbing incidents:

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-M.D.) had been spit on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-G.A.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a ‘ni–er.’ And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a “faggot,” as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president’s speech, shrugged off the incident.

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

“I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus,” [said Clyburn.]

Clyburn added, “I think a lot of those people today demonstrated that this is not about health care…it is about trying to extend a basic fundamental right to people who are less powerful.” TPM, Mother Jones, and The Hill have reports of similar behavior by the Tea Party protesters.

Tea Party activists have gathered on Capitol Hill today for a “Code Red” rally against health care reform. Speakers at the event included Republican Reps. Steve King (IA), Michele Bachmann (MN), and Mike Pence (IN). The gathering was organized by Tea Party Profiteer organizations like FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity. ThinkProgress attended today’s rally and spotted a sign threatening violence if health care passes. The sign reads: “Warning: If Brown can’t stop it, a Browning can,” referring to Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) and a Browning firearm:

Update

Cameron Brenchley caught another shot of the signs:

Update

,Another sign caught by flickr user TigerHawkBlog:

The American Family Association (AFA) is a Christian hate group that mobilizes activists around the country to protest gays, Muslims, and other groups it views as either abhorrent or in violation of its narrow view of the Bible. Recently, AFA called for the military to purge all Muslims from the military. The group is perhaps best known for its annual Winter crusade, when AFA leads boycotts against retailers that greet customers with something other than “Merry Christmas.”

Many GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Sam Brownback (KS) and Sen. Mike Johanns (NE), are frequent guests on AFA radio. In the last week, however, AFA has worked closely with right-wing members of the House to build massive opposition to health reform. AFA talk show personality Janet Porter has hosted GOP Reps. Trenk Franks (AZ), Todd Akin (MO), Michele Bachmann (MN), Steve King (IA), Tom Price (GA), Jim Jordan (OH), and others to concoct outlandish conspiracy theories against health reform, while urging listeners to make calls to Congress.

ThinkProgress has compiled clips of Porter and various Republican members of Congress discussing violent revolution against supporters of health care, impeaching Obama, whether health reform violates the Bible, how Democrats will use health care to ration care for Republicans, and the possibility that health reform will give the government power to kill “perhaps each of us”:

CALLER: Well I’m just wondering how much money they’re going to put in the bill here for extra security for all the Congressmen and Senators and Presidents if they get this passed because don’t you think there’s going to be an American revolt against them?

PRICE: Well I’m hopeful the revolt that we see if we get this passed is at the ballot box and that it comes swiftly this year. [...]

KING: The reality of it is, we can’t move anything in this Congress. Nancy Pelosi has a 40 vote advantage, Harry Reid has a 19 vote advantage. We can’t move impeachment of anything if the President of the United States commited some act, and this is hypothetical, completely, that’s so heinous that the American people would reject. Unless the, let me just say, if the committee chairs decided to move on impeachment, it would not happen in this Congress. [...]

BACHMANN: They want to have this [the vote] on the Sabbath, so this to me would be profaning the Sabbath. [...]

PORTER: And I gotta wonder if it’s the bureaucratic committees deciding whether you get health care or not, what if they treat healthcare like the auto industry? What if its just the Republican dealerships that get closed? What if it’s people who don’t support the administration who are told ‘no you can’t get that operation, you can’t get that medication that you need.’ These are frightening times, are they not?

FRANKS: Well they are frightening times and I’ll tell you what we’re moving toward here is a politically driven healthcare system. [...]

AKIN: We pray that you defend us against a great threat, an unbiblical threat, a threat that it is the job of government to steal from other people and redistribute wealth that is clearly against the teaching of your word and against your commandment not to steal. Certainly you have not given governments the authority not to redistribute wealth. [...]

PORTER: Well you hear things like the Slaughter solution which sounds pretty appropriate considering it’s the unborn, it’s the elderly, it’s the disabled and perhaps each of us who might get slaughtered by denying us treatment or paying outright for the killing as with abortion. Self executing rules, I mean this are things, well might be aimed at us. You think they’re going to use this trick to get this thing through.

KING: That seems more and more likely as the hours unfold.

Listen here:

At an AFA-sponsored conference last year, speakers told attendees to get their guns ready for a “bloody battle” with Obama, who was compared to Hitler. At another panel at the same conference, several speakers agreed that Obama is the “first Muslim American President.”

In the mainstream of the Christian religion and across America’s diverse faiths, leaders have come together to support providing health insurance to all Americans, and to end insurance industry abuses. Unfortunately, far right lawmakers, desperate to kill the bill, are leaning on hate radio and conspiracy theories to generate calls to Congress.