The religious right’s campaign to drag houses of worship into partisan politics marches on. The man who helped organize thousands of conservative pastors in support of Texas Gov. Rick Perry in 2005 and 2006 is now mobilizing pastors in Missouri behind controversial Republican Senate nominee Todd Akin.
The Washington Post reports that political strategist David Lane recently pulled 400 Missouri pastors together to pray over a kneeling Akin at a St. Louis event. The occasion was one of a series of “Renewal Project” events Lane has organized in that state. The gatherings are similar to the six “Texas Restoration Project” events Lane organized for Gov. Perry in 2005 and a seventh for his re-inauguration as Texas governor in January 2007. (Gov. Perry spoke at the St. Louis “Renewal Project” event that featured Akin.) Thousands of pastors and their spouses attended those Texas events. Organizers attending the gatherings in Texas and other states have encouraged pastors to politicize their own congregations.
Akin has alienated mainstream Missourians by suggesting that only some rapes are “legitimate” — part of an absurd argument that rape triggers something in a woman’s body that keeps her from becoming pregnant, thus eliminating rape as a possible reason to have an abortion. He has also called his opponent, Democratic incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill, “unladylike.”
Lane apparently sees Akin as a model for all Republican candidates:
“People are drawn to Akin’s cause because they see it as the opening battle for the soul of the Republican Party.”
The Missouri Renewal Project events have been paid for by the American Family Association (AFA), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group. Gov. Perry asked AFA to organize his Houston prayer extravaganza in August 2011, just before he announced his wildly unsuccessful bid for the Republican president nomination.
Just a few comments:
1) If I could form a prayer circle of 400 around Mr. Akin, we would thank the Lord for putting such a stupid man in a key Senate race. For the time after the election is over, as a matter of pure compassion and pity, we would pray for the stupidity to leave so he will no longer be able to hurt himself or others as he proceeds in life.
2) This “battle for the soul of the Republican Party” reminds me very much of the 1979 rift in the Southern Baptist Convention and the purge of so-called liberals and moderates that came on its heels. It is my understanding from an item I read recently that the extreme wingnuts in the Republican Party are actually and conscioulsy using the Pressler-Patterson Southern Baptist Takeover Model as their roadmap for final purging of the Republican Party of any and all remaining members who are actually, or perceived to be, liberal or moderate. After the refining has been completed the once great GOP can be certified as 100 percent fruitcake and baked with the best wingnuts money can buy.
3) If sex is made for procreation only, I can see how some of these idiots might think that rape would not cause pregnancy. After all, procreation is not the intended purpose of rape, so the system would not work to produce children. I guess it is sort of like this. Cars are created to transport people from Point A to Point B. However, if you choose to use your car to slice a carrot in your kitchen, the car will refuse to start because that is not its intended purpose. Er-uh-uh—something like that. I guess you see my point.
>“People are drawn to Akin’s cause because they see it as the opening battle for the soul of the Republican Party.”
-David Lane
Then this is another war for nothing, because the republican party sold its soul long ago.
I am amazed that just saying God or Jesus will bully someone into silence. May God forgive all of you silent christians. You do not deserve a “C” because actions or absence thereof speak louder than words.