This looks fun:
The Awakening 2013 is an in-depth Prayer and Patriotism event where people are united by our love for our country’s freedom and our faith in Christ. You can choose breakout sessions with topics from Israel to immigration, from our families to our nation’s future. We welcome all ages, denominations, and ethnicities to unite around our shared values. We will educate, motivate, and activate.
…More than 60 national religious and political speakers will bring their insight and excitement to this event. Confirmed speakers include Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William G. “Jerry” Boykin, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, and many more!
The event will take place at First Baptist, Oviedo (pastored by Dwayne Mercer), but the phrase “faith in Christ” is at this stage an empty slogan for a nationalist rally at which the faithful will spend more time pondering Obama’s birth certificate and the evils of Islam than thinking about salvation from sin.
The gig is being put on by Mat Staver’s Liberty Counsel, and the line-up is certainly unusually extensive: those sixty speakers include the likes of
– Ted Baehr, famed for his humbug criticisms of Hollywood violence;
– sometime “sovereign citizen” associate Bradlee Dean, who recently put forward the suggestion that Obama staged the Sandy Hook massacre;
– Joseph Farah, purveyor of crank theories about the Bible and anti-Obama conspiracies including the claim that the President sent a secret message to Muslims promising to continue the Holocaust;
– Frank Gaffney, who memorably noted that the DOD’s Missile Defense Agency’s logo includes an Islamic crescent;
– English Defence League cheerleader Pam Geller (not actually known for her “faith in Christ”);
– masculinist preacher Doug Giles (an early topic of this blog, these days more famous as Hannah Giles’ father);
– neo-Pentecostal A-lister Rick Joyner, who claims to have been given a prophecy from God concerning the imminent destruction of the west coast of the USA;
– William Murray of the Religious Freedom Coalition, who recently gave expert support for the “Obama wears a Muslim ring” conspiracy theory (don’t point a camera at him, by the way);
– anti-Kinsey monomaniac Judith Reisman.
And that’s just the characters who have featured on this blog: other high-profile speakers include Matt Barber, Ken Blackwell, Harry Jackson, Cindy Jacobs, Jim Lafferty, Richard Land, Janet Porter, Rick Scarborough, and many, many others.
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I had more faith (excuse pun) in Frank Gaffney as someone rational, though I didn’t know about his missile comments.
I resigned from editing a pro-Repubican website just over a year ago. I resigned over pay issues, but I have not been able to feel comfortable writing for that site since. The sheer insanity of American politics, with no middle ground between, is corrosive.
Michelle Bachmann is bat-shit crazy, and her husband mincing around claiming to help people “pray away the gay” is a certain case of “physician, heal thyself.”
Seeing a nation retreating into prayer and patriotism, I am reminded of Samuel Johnson’s statement: “Patriotism is a scoundrel’s last refuge”. When patriotism cloaks itself in religious bullcrap, the effect is a sort of collective insanity.
Politics built America into something once-strong by providing pathways to practical solutions, a constitution that tried to be ready for all possibilities. Now, the flag and the constitution are like the holy relics of a crazed religious cult.
I am now so wary of any website with a US “party-political” agenda.
“We will educate, motivate, and activate.” – What on earth can Michelle Bachmann educate anyone about, other than how to surf along through life on a wave of lies and self-deception?
I have always been puzzled by what these far right individuals (sic) are afraid of?
Being a fan of “Right Wing Watch” a lot of the stellar participants to this “Prayer fest” (think hate Obama fest) are familiar names, along with the crazy ideas they try and jam down our collective throats.
I remember a conference Geller held to talk about how Muslim women are being ill treated. A bunch of well behaved Muslim students tried to attend the conference to see what she was talking about, but were not allowed in. This was being filmed, and it was an absurd demonstration of how these “experts” don’t want the truth to come out.
The more a harsh spotlight is shown on these idiots, along with disproving their lies and falsehoods, the more they will look like the bigots they truly are.
First time I visited this blog, will keep up with it.
I really don’t have anything worthwhile to say about the OP, and there will, no doubt, be others elsewhere with better snarkability skills to comment on the lunacy… just stumbled upon this blog as a recommend from Crooks & Liars –
Only comment is to Adrian… you are a breath of fresh air. I’m, depending upon the issue, of course, a fairly moderate Democrat – probably closer to Truman than others – and I’m pleased to see a conservative post as a conservative, rather than a polemic-spouting Tea Partier… it is refreshing to see that there are still a few that recognize there is a world of difference between conservatism and the reactionary right wing that has hijacked the Republican Party. Well spoken and well said.
Well said, Paul and thanks, Adrian. I’m fairly solidly center-left, but I don’t think a political party can easily define any one person. I would like a sane conservative party again, though, because there are good ideas in conservatism that should be discussed. The current Republican party has embraced some outliers and is presenting them as the core of the party, and I think we see that spilling over into Congress, where negotiation and cooperation seems to be all but absent. We all want an informed electorate, and that will hopefully result in an informed political class. Maybe.
Please take your plague to some other town. Oviedo has been my home for 25 years: we do not need trash like this in it.