"Stand for the Family" Rally or War Rally?

James Dobson's "Stand for the Family" 'values voter' rally at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul Tuesday night brought 2 and half hours prayer, war cries, and gay bashing. The auditorium was decked out with Stars and Stripes, the stage was crowded with houseplants, and the audience was devoid of the 'diversity' that speakers would later denounce as harmful to children. Despite being held in ethnically diverse and racially diverse St. Paul, the crowd was neither. After a half our of hymns and patriotic songs and a few words by emcee Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Gary Bauer, and Ken Hutcherson took the stage.

Their speeches were dominated by to cries for war: we're fighting one war, the "War on Terror" and another war, the "Culture War."

Without a hint of irony, Dobson belted out that 1.2 billion Muslims, the number of Muslims he personally has estimated are terrorists, are going to make sure that "God's rule is established governing all nations." Dobson then toldl the crowd that we need to elect evangelical Christians into office so they can do their work to make America 'God's country again'. And he made sure to scare the crowd, saying, "Can we afford to turn the reigns of this government over?" Presumably, he meant the Democrats.

While condemning liberals, Dobson listed the credentials of the ideal candidate. He then said, "if you can find such a person, it would be a sin not to vote for him." Presumably, he meant Republicans.

Gary Bauer spent 15 minutes reminding the crowd about 911, and to remember 911 is appropriate, especially with a 1,200 square foot Stars and Stripes draped behind you. Then Bauer took cheap shots at Clinton, and at "liberals, gays, and liberal politicians" who should "stop undermining the war effort and putting our troops in harm's way." Bauer then made the assertion that the heroes of United Airlines Flight 93 rejected "popular culture" and let family values prevail. He obviously intended the good Christians at the rally to think that those heroes came from the same mold: evangelical, conservative, heterosexual. That, despite the fact that one of the heroes of that flight was openly gay Mark Bingham.

Several minutes later, Bauer's gay bashing (particularly surrounding the Mark Foley sex scandal) would tarnish the memory of Mark Bingham, one of the heroes he had propped up just 5 minutes before in order to score points with his values voter crowd.

Ken Hutcherson rounded out the night with a major persecution complex. Ken Hutcherson passionately that Christians are oppressed much like African Americans were oppressed through much of the 20th Century. He recounted his personal experiences during segregation, and the obstacles to freedom that African Americans faced during an embarrassing chapter of American history. He said "I did not go through all that to become a Christian and do it all again." He said he's "fighting for the rights of Christians to be treated just like everybody else in the United States" and that to be a Christian today is to be "treated like a second class citizen." That, despite Christians are actually overrepresented in Congress and the Supreme Court (7 are Christian, 2 are Jewish). The President of the United States is a Methodist. It left me wondering, if it's true, why are Christians treating themselves as second class citizens.

The two and a half hour rally began to clear out around the second hour, and even more missed the post-speech worship hour. Maybe too much irony makes the mind weary.