Focus on The Family has apparently put their foot in their mouths again. Stuart Shepard, director of digital media at Focus Action (and a meteorologist), wrote and appeared in a video that called on Christians to ask God to open the heavens and let rain pour down on Barack Obama just before his nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 28. In it, he asked, rhetorically, if it would be wrong to ask people to join him in praying for rain two minutes before Obama takes the stage for his big moment at Invesco Field in Denver.
Not just a drizzle, though. Shepard said he had in mind “abundant rain, torrential rain, urban-and-small-stream flood-advisory rain. Not flood-people-out-of-their-houses rain, just good old swamp-the-intersection rain.”
Responding to initial questions raised about his message, Shepard said he was aiming to be “mildly humorous.” But he made clear at one point in the video that his bid for bad weather stemmed from his concern about the possible fallout of an Obama presidency on issues such as abortion.
“Well, I’m still pro-life,” he told his listeners, “And I’m still in favor of marriage being only between one man and one woman. And I’d like the next president, who’ll select justices for the U.S. Supreme Court, to agree.”
As the video gained notoriety on the Internet, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported that those questioning its propriety included some members of Focus on the Family. The video was then taken down from the website of the group’s political unit.
“If people took it seriously, we regret it,” Tom Minnery, Focus Action vice president of public policy told the newspaper.
If you don’t know, Focus on the Family is headed by James Dobson, who has his issues with John McCain (old War-Hero John isn’t conservative enough for Dobson’s Neo-Con tastes). But Dobson spelled out in a recent radio address that he really has problems with Barack Obama, whom Right-Wingers and Evangelicals have taken to dismissing as “the prince from Africa” even as they try to tie him to Arab terrorists by using his middle name, Hussein.
Personally, I think Focus on The Family and its members should be very careful what they wish for. If God takes it upon Himself to start meeting out justice upon the deserving, there are going to be a lot of surprised Christians shovelling coal in Hell, led by George W. Bush, the false prophet himself, and his demonic minion Dick Cheney, as well as the incubi and succubi who have served in the Bush administration. Indeed, if the heavens were to open up and the floods were to come, one has to wonder if Colorado Springs wouldn’t be the first place to find itself underwater.
