UPDATE: The Family Research Council just announced it's going to have a 3 p.m. Sunday press conference to try and draw the press away from our event. They are tiny minded, one-trick ponies, having tried this in Louisville. Help us call 'em what they are. The press wasn't fooled in Louisville, help us make sure they aren't fooled in Nashville.
One thousand patriotic progressives and some of the nation's and Nashville's most powerful progressive religious leaders will gather in Nashville Sunday for the Freedom AND Faith rally opposite Tom DeLay and the Right's so-called "Justice Sunday"
A question about "Justice Sunday" is, why would these conservative "value" voters want to hear from DeLay, a man who did government favors for Saipan (where abortions were mandatory for pregnant garment workers), a man who did those favors at the behest of an indicted lobbyist and DeLay fundraiser, Jack Abramoff? Why would they want DeLay, a man who's under multiple investigations for illegal and unethical campaign finance schemes, a man who threatens federal judges who don't do what he says?
It's because James Dobson & Tony Perkins, sponsors of the megachurch event, are all about power, not freedom or faith. And DeLay has some power. Conservatives used to call this kind of behavior "situation ethics," or "the curse of relativism."
Our Freedom AND Faith event, sponsored by the members of DriveDemocracy.org, will be held Sunday at 3 p.m., at the Cathedral of Praise, 4300 Clarksville Pike, Nashville. Our co-sponsor is Building the Beloved Community, a project of Dr. Rita Brock's Faith Voices for the Common Good.
We have met our initial fundraising goal, but we still need some grassroots financial support. Please contribute if you can.
Contributions cover event expenses such as accommadations for the press (and the media will be there, just like they were at our Freedom AND Faith event in Louisville, opposite the first "Justice Sunday." The money will also defer travel and publicity expenses, on-site things like sound and lights, etc.
We have also been on site at Camp Casey in Crawford, as Cindy is an old friend who has joined us at previous Freedom AND Faith events. We're stretched kinda thin. You can see Margie Becker's powerful Cindy video, at DriveDemocracy.
Our message is simple and direct: Compassion, brotherhood, love, freedom, and the importance of letting people practice their religion without interference from government, and the importance of keeping government, especially the federal judiciary, neutral and not dominated and controlled by the dogma and doctrine of a particular religious sect.
Politically conservative fundamentalists have dominated the stage in recent years. They have every right to speak their minds in the public sphere. But they do not have the right to use government as their handmaiden, to impose by force and law their narrow views.
Our Freedom AND Faith speakers represent a broad cross-section of religious leaders. Some are conservative, some are liberal. We are being hosted in Nashville by Bishop Jerry Maynard, who heads a predominantly African American Pentacostal congregation, the Cathedral of Praise, and Nashville's "Community of Faith and Unity".
Join us in Nashville if you can. With your help, the era of Dobson and Perkins is coming to an end. The curtain's rising on a new era of progressive religious political action, the kind of action we saw with abolition, the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Anti-Vietnam War movement.