Perry Taps Anti-Gay Crusader and "Prayer Lady" for Florida Team

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/5140/perry_taps_anti-gay_crusader_and_%22prayer_lady%22_for_florida_team/

Rick Perry's campaign has announced the co-chairs of his "leadership team" for the Presidency5 straw poll to be held in Florida later this week. Among the co-chairs are John Stemberger, president of the Focus on the Family affiliate Florida Family Policy Council and Pam Olsen, the "prayer lady" and founder of the Florida Prayer Network. Stemberger recently endorsed Perry.

In 2008, Stemberger (who this year said Mitt Romney wasn't Mormon enough for him to support) endorsed Mike Huckabee. Stemberger, a lawyer, led the effort to get a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (which was already banned by statute) on the ballot that same year. He helped organize the "Rediscovering God in America" Pastors' Policy Briefing by the Florida Renewal Project, which focused on engaging pastors in the presidential campaign and was widely seen as supportive of Huckabee.

One of the key organizers of the Renewal Projects was David Lane, who told me in early 2008, "What we’re doing is the mobilization of pastors and pews to restore America to her Judeo-Christian heritage. That’s our goal." Lane was the national finance chairman for Perry's August prayer event, The Response. According to a recent report in the Los Angeles Times, Lane is working with the non-profit group United in Purpose, backed by Silicon Valley venture capitalists, which "is using sophisticated data-mining techniques to compile a database of every unregistered born-again and evangelical Christian and conservative Catholic in the country." The Renewal Projects active in 2008 around the country were modeled on Lane's Texas Restoration Project, which was intended to support Perry's gubernatorial reelection bid. Its stated enemies included gays and later Muslims.

Just 12 days after The Response, Don Wildmon, whose American Family Association bankrolled the event, sent an email to registrants introducing the United in Purpose voter registration project Champion the Vote. Wildmon wrote, "research has shown that it takes only 5 million voters to influence the outcome of an election. This is a do-able goal, and Champion the Vote is seeking Champions – an army of volunteers -- to help with the effort. A Champion is simply a Christian talking to other Christians about registering and voting."

[Angry Dragon]

1. Onward Christian soldiers

[gratuitous]

2. Is Wildmon's mailing list even 5,000 anymore, let alone 5 million?

There are pockets of support, I'm sure, for these nuts and their bigotry lurking in religious garb, but Wildmon has been irrelevant for years. I wonder how many folks at The Response thought they were signing up for Wildmon's brand of nuttery, which even some evangelicals find too extreme?