Rick Perry's Tent Revivalpalooza Hate Fest

A Story by LibMom

An informed look at the unholy union between evangelical Christianity and the Republican party.

On August 6th, Texas governor and self proclaimed prophet, Rick Perry, is holding a big ol' tent revival in Houston, TX. He rented out Reliant Stadium and calls his event "The Response". Rick's prayer meeting is sponsored by a conservative evangelical Christian group, The American Family Association. Unfortunately for Rick Perry, the Southern Poverty Law Center has some not so flattering things to say about the AFA:

American Family Assocation
TUPELO, Miss.
www.afa.net

Best known for leading boycotts of advertisers who support "indecency" in the mass media (including the supposedly cocaine-snorting Mighty Mouse), the Rev. Donald Wildmon, a former Methodist minister, has led a series of religious-right groups since 1976.

Appointed by Alan Sears (see Alliance Defense Fund) to the Meese Commission on Pornography in 1985, Wildmon successfully urged the removal of Playboy and Penthouse from some 17,000 convenience stores. But another favorite target has been homosexuality.

In the 1980s, Wildmon succeeded in getting ads pulled from shows like "Thirtysomething," added to Wildmon's list of "Trash TV" because its plot included a gay romance. The American Family Association (AFA), created by Wildmon in 1977 as the National Federation for Decency but renamed AFA in 1988, has built an empire �" a 200-station radio network, about 100 employees and a monthly AFA Journal sent to 180,000 people �" largely on the basis of anti-gay appeals.

In one October 2004 article, the AFA Journal suggests that gay influences are leading to a "grotesque culture" that will include "quick encounters in the middle school boys' restroom." In its 1994 booklet Homosexuality in America, the AFA claims "[p]rominent homosexual leaders and publications have voiced support for pedophilia, incest, sadomasochism, and even bestiality."

AFA's direct-mail appeals are particularly shrill. "For the sake of our children and society, we must OPPOSE the spread of homosexual activity! Just as we must oppose murder, stealing, and adultery!" says one such recent fundraising letter. "Since homosexuals cannot reproduce, the only way for them to 'breed' is to RECRUIT! And who are their targets for recruitment? Children!"

AFA has 21 state directors, including California's Scott Lively, co-author of The Pink Swastika, a book that claims "homosexuals are the true inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities" (see also Making Myths).

In late 2004, the AFA called for a boycott of Proctor & Gamble, calling it "one of the largest promoters of the homosexual agenda," partly because it advertises on TV shows "Will and Grace" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." By late January 2005, AFA claimed more than 380,000 people had signed its boycott petition.

With Wildmon reportedly in shaky health, his son, Tim, now serves as AFA president.

Bryan Fischer is the director of issue analysis for government and public policy for the American Family Association. Bryan Fischer, among other thing, is a raging homophobe, and despises Native Americans:

Many of the tribal reservations today remain mired in poverty and alcoholism because many native Americans continue to cling to the darkness of indigenous superstition instead of coming into the light of Christianity and assimilating into Christian culture.

This is what Bryan Fischer believes about the Medal of Honor:

We have feminized the Medal of Honor.

According to Bill McGurn of the Wall Street Journal, every Medal of Honor awarded during these two conflicts has been awarded for saving life. Not one has been awarded for inflicting casualties on the enemy. Not one. (quote from Fischer's blog on AFA)

Christian, right? I mean Patton was as much like Jesus as anyone...

The above is a link to approximately two minutes of hate. This includes the little speech Fischer gives detailing how Nazi storm troopers (which he also calls "brown shirts"-two different things) were all gay because homosexuals are "brutal".

This link will take you to an amazingly informative article from the Holocaust Museuem that details the horrors and torture gay men suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Hitler did have one gay man in his cabinet, Ernst Rohm. Once he was killed in 1934, the gloves came off, and gay men were tortured and castrated. In fact, the only place I could find that accused gay men of being brutal Nazis was on the AFA's website, in a blog written by Bryan Fischer.

Bryan Fischer also believes that the "rampant" inbreeding in the Muslim community worldwide is the reason they are all so violent. He has called President Obama a fascist, AND a socialist. So, President Obama supports the corporate state AND social justice. Um, no. Fischer believes that gay men are domestic terrorists, running around, infecting other men with AIDS. He believes that homosexual couples should not be able to adopt children, because they would be doing "great psychological harm" to the children. I think listening to Bryan Fischer would do much more harm to a child than being raised by two people who love that child and love one another.

So, Rick Perry is having this tent revivalpalooza, sponsored by a group the Southern Poverty Law Center considers a hate group because of their flagrant hatred of the LGBT community. In fact, Bryan Fischer believes that LGBT activists are the greatest perpetrators of hate crimes in the country.

Fischer compares homosexuals to bank robbers, call them Nazis, believes homosexuality should be criminalized, says gays are anti-freedom and anti-Christian, and states that most homosexuals who outed themselves and were discharged from the military did so because they weren't "tough enough to cut it", or, as he calls them, were "limp wristed".

Right Wing Watch, a fantastic organization, has been keeping a close eye on The Response Tent Revivalpalooza, and the link below gives an update regarding well known right wing hate mongers and homophobes who are either attending or endorsing this event. David Barton, a pseudo scholar who believes with his whole hateful little heart that America is a Christian nation, founded on the Bible, has said without any hesitation that he wants Christians in government, Democrats and Republicans, and that they should "fight" to prove who is the better Christian. Cindy Jacobs attributed the mass bird deaths earlier this year to the repeal of DADT. Dave Welch is the founder of the U.S. Pastor Council who apologized to the nation when his group failed to keep a gay woman from being elected to public office, calling her a "cancer".

Frank Schaeffer is the son of religious right leader, Francis Schaeffer. Frank Schaeffer has a unique insight and perspective on what he calls "the fringe". The Republican party did not used to be what it is now. With the merging of Republicanism and evangelical Christianity, you have the Republican party of today. Mr. Schaeffer has written many books about not only his experiences within the religious right, but also about how he got out of the movement, and how is he educating people on the reasons and rationale behind the "fringe". The link below is an excellent lecture Frank Schaeffer gave about the "fringe".

On August 6th, 2011, some of the most hateful and bigoted evangelicals in America will come together under one roof in the name of Jesus Christ. They will preach about evil, and the ruination of society by sodomites, the reason God has lifted His protective hand from America, and why Christians must vote for an evangelical Christian president. Because we're all wrong. There is no freedom of religion, unless you're a fundamentalist Christian. There is no Heaven unless you have been born again and accept Christ as the Messiah (don't tell Israel). You will burn in hell for all eternity unless you accept Jesus, and realize that unlike everything you may have read, Jesus was all about hate and bigotry and shame and stoning and punishment. That would be caucasian, Republican Jesus, not the ACTUAL Jesus from the Bible.

The ruination of society is not being brought about by the LGBT community, or President Obama, or the Southern Poverty Law Center, or MSNBC, or rock music or online porn. The ruination of this society is being brought about by people like Rick Perry, who believe that gays are evil, that prayer is the only solution to anything (the debt, wildfires, war), and that anyone who doesn't vote Republican, go to church (no matter what they do during the week, church is the important thing), is gay or has gay friends or knows someone who has a brother who might be gay, and has either had an abortion, knows someone who has had an abortion or has walked by a Planned Parenthood clinic and not cast stones, literally, at the women entering or exiting the clinic, is evil and thus deserving of hatred, attacks and lies. That's the new Republican party.

Now I know that some people are going to type at me all in caps, calling me out for generalizing and lumping all Rethug...err...Republicans together. Tell ya what-you keep the hate mongering, paranoid, ignorant bigoted pseudo Christians off the ariwaves, start practicing a little actual Christianity and decry Rick Perry's Tent Revivalpalooza, and maybe, just maybe, I'll believe you. Of course, you are usually the same people who scream "There's no racism in the tea party" while you hold your "Lyin' African" sign, and are certain that the black man we elected president was not born in America. It's hard to keep up with you, quite frankly. You're afraid of so many things and so many groups, when the folks you should fear are the ones who look an awful lot like you. Timothy McVeigh comes to mind.

Rick Perry is thinking about running for president. He hasn't got a prayer (pun intended) but in the meantime, he is going to dial up the hateful rhetoric, turn more Americans against each other, and make it even more difficult for people who are liberal, or gay, or Hispanic, or anything other than white, evengelical Christian Republicans to fight for their rights. That's the vision of America that Rick Perry and David Barton and the American Family Association and Dave Welch and Cindy Jacobs will be preaching on August 6th in Reliant Stadium. That's their "Response". What's yours?