Billionaire Brothers Want a Theocracy

July 9, 2014 by 19 Comments

Peter Montgomery has a story about Farris and Dan Wilks, a sort of theocratic version of the Koch brothers (who aren’t all that interested in religious matters), who made their fortune in fracking and are using it to support a broadly dominionist agenda.

Brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, who reaped a fortune off the fracking gold rush and cashed in their Texas-based company a few years ago for more than $3 billion. In addition to buying up vast swaths of land in the West, they’re “using the riches that the Lord has blessed them with to back specific goals,” as Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody puts it.

What are those goals? They’ve embraced both the anti-government politics of the Koch brothers and the religious right’s anti-gay, anti-choice cultural warfare. The Wilks brothers belong to Pastors and Pews, an organization connected to Christian-nation extremist David Lane, who wants to make the Bible a primary public school textbook.

Dan Wilks told Brody that we need to “bring the Bible back into the school, and start teaching our kids at a younger age.” Adds brother Farris: “They’re being taught the other ideas, the gay agenda, every day out in the world so we have to stand up and explain to them that that’s not real, that’s not proper, it’s not right.”

The brothers and their wives have followed in the footsteps of other far-right funders and set up foundations. Together they’ve funded them to the tune of more than $200 million. In 2011 and 2012 they gave away millions, both to churches and to culture-war political groups…

Another $4 million or so funded leading organizations in the religious right political movement, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. Another big chunk — more than $4 million — enriched anti-abortion groups. The brothers support a network of “pregnancy centers” that refuse to talk to single women about contraception and require married women to check with their husbands and pastors before discussing birth control…

The brothers’ worldview seems to draw heavily on the teachings of a church founded by their father, which combines Biblical literalism with a heavy emphasis on the Old Testament. According to church doctrine, abortion is “murder,” including when it ends pregnancies resulting from rape and incest. And homosexuality is “a serious crime — a very grievous sin.”

They aren’t content to teach their own kids that Christianity is true, they want to teach your kids as well. Good thing that pesky constitution prevents them from doing that.

Filed Under: Church and State, Wingnuttia 19 Comments

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About Ed Brayton

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

  • http://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/User:Modusoperandi Modusoperandi

    “They aren’t content to teach their own kids that Christianity is true, they want to teach your kids as well.”

    YES BUT YOU WANT TO FORCE OUR CHILDREN TO NOT LEARN ABOUT OUR LORD IN GOVERNMENT SCHOOL “HISTORY” AND “SCIENCE” CLASSES AND YOU WANT TAKE AWAY OUR CHILDRENS RIGHT TO LEARN ABOUT SEX ON THEIR WEDDING NIGHTAS GOD INTENDED BY TEACHING THEM ABOUT SEX IN SEXED CLASSES!!!

     

    “Good thing that pesky constitution prevents them from doing that.”

    ITS FREEDOM OF RELIGION NOT FREEDOM FROM RELIGION!!! CHECKMATE ATHIESTS!!

  • timpayne

    “Good thing that pesky constitution prevents them from doing that”

    There was time I might have agreed, but no longer. Right now, the constitution says whatever 5 right wing ideologues say it says.

  • busterggi

    “The brothers’ worldview seems to draw heavily on the teachings of a church founded by their father, which combines Biblical literalism with a heavy emphasis on the Old Testament. ”

    So when are they going to start stoning their fellow liars for Jesus like Newt “the Adulterer” Gingrich to death? Or is that somewhere below banning shellfish or wearing mixed fabrics on their list?

  • matty1

    Biblical literalism with a heavy emphasis on the Old Testament. According to church doctrine, abortion is “murder,”

    OK stop there, where in the Bible does it say that abortion is murder? Chapter and verse if possible.

  • pocketnerd

    Thus Spake Zaratimpayne,#2:

    “Good thing that pesky constitution prevents them from doing that”

    There was time I might have agreed, but no longer. Right now, the constitution says whatever 5 right wing ideologues say it says.

    Except of course when one of the five goes off the reservation and sides with the real conservatives on the Supreme Court (i.e. the four who think the law should be interpreted in light of traditional jurisprudence and not the wingnut agenda). Then it’s OMG BLACK-ROBED TYRANTS LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH and proof the whole Supreme Court has overstepped its bounds and must be removed. (Or at least stacked with even more neoconservative flacks.)

  • Taz

    Great. The Osama bin Ladens of the American Taliban.

  • pocketnerd

    Thus Spake Zaramatty1, #4:

    OK stop there, where in the Bible does it say that abortion is murder? Chapter and verse if possible.

    It doesn’t. Exodus 21:22-25 implicitly defines induced termination of pregnancy as a property crime, not murder. But fear not, Real True Christians™ are working to redact the Bible so it will always have said what they now say it says.

  • D. C. Sessions

    I’m totally all for them doing as their Scriptures command them and giving all they have to Maggie Gallagher to change the disastrous course this country is on and back towards a traditional Biblical marriage. Every penny to get the word out.

  • coragyps

    Heh! And I have met Dan – he tried to stiff our company on a quarter-million dollars in purchases that his frac company made. A real fucking Christian, all right.

  • Jordan Genso

    @7 pocketnerd

    Thank you for pointing out that Bible verse and link.

  • pocketnerd

    Thus Spake ZaraJordan Genso, #10:

    Thank you for pointing out that Bible verse and link.

    You’re welcome! Slacktivist’s blog is worth reading, even if you’re not even remotely religious.

  • Joe Mama

    Remember, folks, the whole prayer in school debate isn’t about having their kids being taught about their religion, it’s about having your kids taught about their religion. Of course their precious little crotch fruit prays all the time and is religious, but all those little heathen kids need to be forced, I mean taught, to pray.

  • Donnie

    ITS FREEDOM OF RELIGION NOT FREEDOM FROM RELIGION!!! CHECKMATE ATHIESTS!!

    I had one of my FB friends who is an actual friend use that me on a argument on the Hobby Lobby case. Once I picked up my jaw, I neatly explained to him what FREEDOM!!!!!! meant. Sad day :(

    At least I got through to the multitude of others that were following the back-and-forth, so that they could also address the cliche if used against them….. FREEEEeeeeeDOMMMMmmmmm!!!!

  • Nick Gotts

    The Osama bin Ladens of the American Taliban.- Taz

    Sorry, ObL is so last jihad! It’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who’s the Islamist Big Cheese now. Rolls off the tongue after a few rehearsals!

  • vereverum

    …so we have to stand up and explain to them …

    Isn’t that what you ought to be doing anyway?

    And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. -Deut 6:6-7 KJV.

    It says diligently, it does not say only once, it does not say the state school is to do it.

    The evidence indicates they are simply lazy or only follow convenient commandments.

  • Michael Heath

    Ed writes:

    They aren’t content to teach their own kids that Christianity is true, they want to teach your kids as well.

    I’ve never encountered even one conservative Christian parent who taught their own kids that Christianity is true. Instead, in every single encounter I’ve had these parents, their peers, and their authority figures attempted to indoctrinate these kids in hopes of convincing them that Christianity is true.

    The volume of my encounters is enormous given I was victim of this sort of child abuse up until I became 18. That was when I became free from this sort of incredibly pervasive, insidious, and regrettably, government and liberal sanctioned abuse.

    We have an unimaginably long ways to go when it comes to protecting rights equally, unimaginable even to secular liberals.

  • 930i7

    Perhaps we should consider making religion an adults only activity. Now I realize that won’t happen anytime soon for a number of reasons, but it’s something to think about.

  • grumpyoldfart

    Doomed to fail. They are giving the money to Christian organizations – and if there’s one thing Christians know how to do well, it’s skim money from a legitimate account into their own pockets.

  • http://timgueguen.blogspot.com timgueguen

    Why don’t the Wilks brothers just start their own little Godland? I’m sure some country would be willing to sell them a few thousand hectares, or an offshore island.


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