Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry's 2011 version of "The Response" in Houston drew about 35,000 people, but Gov. Bobby Jindal's event did not come close to meeting the PMAC's seating capacity of 13,215.
That could be due to the fact that Louisiana State University students and faculty didn't want the darn thing in the first place. And the fact that it was sponsored by a SPLC-certified hate group didn't help things either. You see, the American Family Association and its founder, Tim Wildman are virulently anti-gay as well as anti-just-about-everything-else. With supreme bigot Bryan Fischer as its chief spokesperson, the group has spoken against African-Americans, Native Americans, gays, Obama, and every entity not mentioned favorably in the Bible. It also promotes Rambo Jesus.
There were protests, of course, but the most notable was actually another prayer rally:
While a prayer rally held at LSU, featuring Gov. Bobby Jindal, received a lot of attention because of the group hosting it, the American Family Association, more than 200 people descended upon Southern University Saturday morning to praise and worship God, and pray for a better education system in Louisiana, healthcare reform, more political involvement, more black men to be fathers to their children and new policies that would decrease the mass incarceration rates of black men.
And then there were the protestors outside the sparsely-attended event:
It was outrageous for the governor to throw a prayer rally on LSU's campus -- an event seemingly aimed at raising his national profile -- while simultaneously asking for state higher education to absorb at least $300 million in budget cuts next year, they said. "He is using it to launch a presidential campaign. ... We are subsidizing his move on to national office on the backs of our students," said Kent Filbel, a LSU professor who attended the protest in his academic robes.
Bogus prophetesses and tearful children aside, the fact that Jindal thought this rally would be effective religiously or politically was the real idiocy: it was a show of righteous arrogance that accomplished very little, except to make people wonder at the political process proffering Jindal as leader.
At the Southern University rally, Pastor Theron Jackson of Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in Shreveport, La. said: "There is no mystery as to why we call on God."We don't elect a God. We have a God that lives high but looks low."
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