I spent Saturday watching Gov. Rick Perry's huge prayer rally "The Response" on livestream and followed it on Twitter. I watched hours of young people swaying back and forth, weeping and hugging each other, their arms outstretched as endless hypnotic Christian-rock jams rang in the background. Vonette Bright preached that she wanted "The Ten Commandments posted in every classroom", and said she wanted to "Put God back in our schools". One of those entranced, swaying teenagers came up and told her brothers and sisters to "Go into our high schools, our middle schools" and bring people to their version of Christ, in what they call "Student Mobilization". It was painfully familiar, and it scared me to watch.
Earlier Gov. Rick Perry of Texas stood triumphantly at the mic. Quoting Scripture, he preached his Christian message to the crowd. Perry's mission is bigger than the economy, bigger than the Republican party. He aims to change our nation in a way that will last throughout generations. He and the groups athat organized "The Response" wants to fill America with "God's love", the kind of "love" that his Fundamentalist brothers and sisters believe in, that the American Family Association believes in. The kind of "love" that says that homosexuality is as harmful as "murder, stealing, and adultery" The kind of "love" that sounds a lot like hate, that feels a lot like a cult mentality. He wants to bring that kind of "love" into our middle schools and high schools.
The Response scares me so much because I've been there at events that felt a lot like this one. I was recruited by this movement when I was an impressionable youth in 1999. I was a senior and knew I wasn't graduating from high school. They convinced me that 'Jesus' could "fix" me. I was spending hours at church events three or more times a week, praying and speaking in tongues. They told me "not to eat or drink" with my old "atheist friends", they told me not to associate with my family as much because they didn't have the same "relationship with God" that I did. I found a new sense of belonging and would leave with my new friends and fast for days, and my mom would bake cookies and beg me to come home.
Fundamentalist Christianity is a dangerous movement that converts those who are vulnerable, those who have no aspirations for the future, and tells them they can be 'healed'. I was once one of those swaying, weeping youth, and it took me a year to realize that those beliefs were wrong. I finally realized that a truly loving God would not doom my friends and family automatically to Hell just because they believe differently than I do.
I wrote this diary because the prospect of a President Perry or Bachmann truly frightens me at the deepest levels. From that bully pulpit, he or she would fundamentally change the culture and values of America. Enacting education "reforms" that force prayer and his version of Christianity into our middle and high schools would consistently indoctrinate more young people into this movement. Then Perry would shift the Supreme Court far to the right, and the effects would last for decades, if not generations. Think it can't happen? Don't underestimate these folks, their dedication to this cause is extremely powerful. They will do whatever it takes to elect someone who will 'bring this country to Christ'.
Please remember when you cast your vote in 2012 that America in 2016 after Perry or Bachmann would be different than the one we know now in subtle but real ways. Fundamentalist Christianity and anti-gay sentiment would creep permanently into American culture. Liberals would become a vocal but ever-shrinking minority and the trend of increasing tolerance toward gays, Muslims, Pagans, and non-believers will begin to slowly reverse. This change would be small, but large enough to be irreversible, "Throughout all generations, forever and ever, Amen."
I got a lot of good additional information about this from Right Wing Watch and about the American Family Association and other groups that are behind "The Response" from Southern Poverty Law Center. Oh, and thanks Mom, for keeping my feet tethered to Earth when I was in danger of floating away to a dangerous 'enlighenment'.