Earlier this month
DefCon exposed that
Focus on the Family's "Stand For the Family Events" were flopping, big time.
An event in Pittsburgh at a 17,000 person venue only drew 3,000. An event scheduled at an 18,000 seat arena in St. Paul was moved to a much smaller auditorium at the last minute. And Nashville's 10,000 seat event was cancelled, moved instead to a local church where the admission was free of charge.
In today's Washington Post, Alan Cooperman highlights these numbers again, pointing out just how ineffective the religious right has been this year in their attempts to use the "gay issue" to impact the elections.
Cooperman's story, entitled "Religious Conservatives Cheer Ruling on Gays as Wake-Up Call" highlight's yet again the political nature of the religious right's extreme agenda.
Of course, we're not only the only ones aware of this obvious connection. Religious conservatives have picked up on it too. Stories about the backlash from the "social conservative base" have filled this fall's newspapers. What's been missing from a great deal of the coverage however is that this backlash has come despite the best efforts of the religious right leadership to again frame 2006 in the context of hollow issues like gay marriage. The body is no longer following the head.
We can see this in scores of polls that show "social conservatives" are actually concerned with Iraq, while Tony Perkins circulates newsletters highlighting again the unparalleled importance of defending marriage.
It's even more apparent when Dobson, Perkins, and Gary Bauer hold events in three states where gay marriage is a prominent topic and no one shows.
And it's undeniable when you witness the desperation in Dobson's pleas for his followers to continue to act on the issues he has chosen.
DefCon formed to combat the influence of the religious right. Our fight is nowhere near over. But my hope is that after the dust has settled our leaders look back and see that despite their best efforts the religious right at the end of the day couldn't control the herd.
After all, thanks to David Kuo, we know our leaders aren't catering to them because they actually believe their extreme rhetoric.