Battle Cry Returns

Like a demented slasher in a cheesy sequel, they're back:

Pop culture faces a controversial assault in San Francisco this weekend when Ron Luce aims to bring 22,000 evangelical Christian teenagers closer to Jesus through a rock concert, City Hall rally and other events.

Background here, here, and here.

This time around the Chronicle has a pretty good story, with some good quotes from evangelicals in the Bay Area criticizing the militant rhetoric, the commercialism, and the superficiality of the event. It still doesn't cover Luce's extremist political agenda, but it does make clear that not everyone is on board with Luce's schtick.

It also has a quote that made me laugh out loud:

Some pastors said Luce is as guilty of promoting consumerism as the culture he criticizes because Teen Mania sells T-shirts and other merchandise. Luce said the difference between consumerism and Teen Mania's merchandising is that his products are being sold with a Christian intent. [emphasis added]

Yup...none of that godless secular consumerism here; just good righteous Christian consumerism.

This Luce clown has a sweet gig going, and we're going to be seeing a lot more of him. He's also the future face of evangelical wingnuts (just as Fred Phelps is a throwback), as they learn how to mask their bigotry with savvier marketing techniques. Which means we have to keep getting better at spotting them.

All Battle Cry, All the Time

Okay, okay--I know I'm starting to sound obsessed...but it's the blog gift that keeps on giving. And today's gift is an apparent scoop from the Chronicle's Leah Garchik:

And among those at last week's Christian youth rallies at the ballpark was Alexandra Pelosi, who's making a documentary on the movement for HBO.

This doesn't sound like great news to me. I never saw Journeys With George, but most of the people whose opinions I respect considered it pretty softball; its non-judgmental, let-the-subject-speak-for-himself approach would, for reasons I keep repeating, be disastrously wrong for Ron Luce and his organization. It will be interesting to see if she includes the creepy wingnut politics beneath the upbeat surface of Ron Luce, Inc. If not, I'm sure a lot of people will be happy to help correct the record.

[That's all, folks]

Stealth Wingnuts

Dobsonite theocrat Ron Luce takes great pains to project an image of good old non-political evangelism in his teen ministry; he seems to be succeeding. The Catholic Church sponsors a media campaign designed to project an image of moderation for the anti-choice side. Welcome to the future. Christian authoritarians are becoming less like Fred Phelps and more like Ron Luce and Monika Rodman. The public face is friendly and non-threatening; the reality is Vision America and Operation Rescue.

We need to keep up with them. We need to keep getting better about identifying these people, about making their hidden agendas public, about exposing them for the scary wingnuts they really are.

The other thing we need to do is to learn from them. We embrace values and ideas that should appeal to the broadest possible range of Americans, and yet most of our agenda isn't even on the table. Wingnuts are making their extreme ideas sound reasonable, and we can't even make moderate policies appeal to moderates. We need to get better and smarter about this. We need to transform public opinion from the ground up. This is the great project for liberals--bigger than any election or court nominee or legislation. This is the one we need to win.

[That's all, folks]

Battle Cry Revisited

In last week's post about the Battle Cry event in San Francisco, I described Ron Luce as a 'stealth wingnut' who hides his political agenda in order to broaden his program's appeal.

This worked on at least one reporter for the Chronicle, and it appears to have worked on the editorial board as well. (I missed this when it first appeared last Tuesday, but I think it's still worth writing about.) They proceeded to attack the big old meanies on the Board of Supervisors for condemning a harmless rally of nice clean-cut Christian kids:

The supervisors' reaction to the evangelical Christians was so boorishly over the top that only one word could describe it:

Intolerant.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, was quoted telling counterprotesters Friday that the gathering Christians were "loud, they're obnoxious, they're disgusting and they should get out of San Francisco." On Monday, however, Leno struck a more reasoned tone, acknowledging that his rally cry was "not one of my prouder moments." He said the youth group was "welcome in San Francisco," even though he does worry that its religious rhetoric could "under a cloak of love" feed a "fearful world's appetite for hate."

In fact, concern about heterosexual sex by unmarried youth gets equal treatment from the Battle Cry campaign. Its goal is to spread Christianity and to help young people recognize and resist the cultural influences of a "stealthy enemy" that includes "corporations, media conglomerates and purveyors of popular culture." Its Web site (www.battlecry.com) speaks of "casualties of war" that include drinking, drug use, teen sex, pornography, abortion, suicide and violence.

We may disagree with certain aspects of the Battle Cry agenda -- on issues such as abortion rights, religion in schools or acceptance of an individual's sexual orientation -- but the attempt by counterprotesters and some of the city's elected officials to call them "fascist" and "hateful" was totally at odds with the tone of the ballpark event and the approach of the Web site.

The gathering was not an "act of provocation," as the supervisors claimed. It was a get-together of young evangelicals whose lifestyles and religious views just happen to be in the minority here -- apparently making them open season for politicians to chastise. [emphasis added]

Not an 'act of provocation'? Tell that to Ron Luce. From the Bay Area Reporter:

"Please prayerfully consider coming early and gathering for this pre-event Battlecry rally at San Francisco's City Hall and have your teens participate as we pray for the northwest region, our nation, and this generation," an announcement from Battlecry founder Ron Luce said. "These are the very city hall steps where several months ago ***gay marriages*** [sic] were celebrated for the entire world to see."

Battlecry publicity materials also state...."Try to imagine a society that mocks the fact that 'under God' was ever even in our Pledge of Allegiance. Try to imagine the motto 'In God we trust' taken off our money. Imagine all references to Christ and His cross removed from all emblems and city logos. Try to imagine a world where a pastor can go to jail for saying homosexuality is wrong. Current news stories confirm that these unfortunate events are already happening here and in other nations around the world."

And of course, the ultimate irony of this editorial is that the day before it appeared Luce had spoken at the wingnut War on Christians conference. (More about Luce's political agenda and affilications here.)

But the Chronicle editorial board can't be expected to know all this. After all, it wasn't on the website.

Just to be clear, if they had been right about the nature of the rally--if it really had been just a religious thing, and not a deliberate political provocation--then it would have been wrong of the Supervisors to condemn it. As it is, I think the resolution and counter-demonstration were exactly what Luce was aiming for when he came here. (I fully expect this picture to be featured prominently in Vision America's future publicity materials.) The wisdom of the thing isn't what's at issue here, though. The editorial was about intolerance--and it was based on an incomplete and erroneous understanding of the group in question.

This is why people like Luce are dangerous. Too many people who should know better are way too easy to fool.

[That's all, folks]

Virtue Terrorists vs. the Fascist Mega-Pep Rally

San Francisco was invaded this weekend. From yesterday's Chronicle:

More than 25,000 evangelical Christian youth landed Friday in San Francisco for a two-day rally at AT&T Park against "the virtue terrorism" of popular culture, and they were greeted by an official city condemnation and a clutch of protesters who said their event amounted to a "fascist mega-pep rally."

The organizer of the thing, Ron Luce, is something of a stealth wingnut. He soft-pedals the politics (his website doesn't even mention homosexuality, for example) in a calculated attempt to appeal to suburban audiences. It seems to have worked pretty well with Janine De Fao, who wrote a second, more softball story that ran today:

The teens were greeted Friday at a kick-off rally at City Hall by an official city condemnation and protesters who called them anti-gay, anti-choice and intolerant. Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, suggested they "get out of San Francisco."

While youth did travel from throughout the Western United States for the two-day event, which cost $55, Leno may have been surprised how many live in the Bay Area, and even in the city itself.

No protesters were on hand Saturday, and the vibe was not one of condemnation, but of celebrating the fact that it can be cool to be Christian.

The rest of the story is about nice teens rocking out to good Christian music, with a whole slew of positive quotes from the kids. Gee, isn't that nice?

Make no mistake, though: Luce is cut from the same cloth as Ayatollah Dobson and his ilk. Luce was a featured speaker, for example, at last year's "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith" conference, and will be at the upcoming Christian right whine-a-thon (both sponsored by VisionAmerica, one of the most active groups in the fundamentalist-political complex).

And however innocuous the presentation, there was no mistaking the real agenda here:

A Battle Cry invitation to teenagers made plain the symbolism of gathering in San Francisco for a pre-event rally at "the very City Hall steps where several months ago, gay marriages were celebrated for all the world to see."

And then, of course, there's the ubiquitous military imagery:

"Battle Cry for a Generation" is led by a 44-year-old Concord native [he actually lives in Garden Valley, Texas], Ron Luce....Luce wants to unleash a "blitz" of youth pastors into the communities.

"This is more than a spiritual war," Luce said. "It's a culture war."

Military metaphors abound in Luce's descriptions of the struggle. He tells young people of how "an enemy has launched a brutal attack on them." At a pre-Battle Cry rally Friday afternoon on the steps of City Hall, Luce told his mostly teenage audience that "terrorists of a different kind" -- advertisers -- were targeting them and that they were "caught in the middle of the battle."

"Are you ready to go to battle for your generation?" he asked, and the young people roared "yes!" and some waved triangular red flags flown from long, medieval-looking poles.

I'm no expert on war, but as I understand it you kind of have to have an enemy. I'm guessing that's us.

People like Luce are arguably a lot more dangerous than their more obviously wingnutty brethren. A lot of anxious parents (and teens) who wouldn't fall for the explicit bigotry of Dobson could easily get sucked in by Luce's approach to the problems attendant on a morally complicated society. He certainly fooled the Chronicle reporter (I'd be willing to bet they ran the softball piece after getting wingnut complaints about Saturday's more critical article). His ends are the same as Dobson's, though...and we cannot allow ourselves to forget it.

[That's all, folks]