Your Friendly Neighborhood Demagogue

We've written about "Coach" Dave Daubenmire a few times in the past, once when he Alan Keyes, Rick Scarborough, and Peter Labarbera attended his "Gathering of Eagles" and another time when he signed on to a letter demanding Jed Babbin's firing as editor of Human Events for providing unacceptably positive coverage of Mitt Romney.

Recently, he was carrying out a "sleep in" demanding a face-to-face meeting with Congressman Zack Space.

That effort apparently catapulted him into right-wing media stardom according to this new profile of Daubenmire from Columbus, Ohio's "The Other Paper" entitled "Meet Your Local Demagogue":

Daubenmire founded Minute Men United, a nationwide organization of evangelical men who stage confrontational anti-homosexual actions at LGBT-friendly events with the self-appointed mission (as published in a Minute Men tract) of “uniting and mobilizing God-fearing Americans.” In August 2007, the Dispatch reported on the group’s interruption of LGBT-friendly church services at several Central Ohio churches, including King Avenue United Methodist Church in Columbus. They are a regular presence at Gay Pride parades across the nation. Daubenmire has been active, both in street protests (he spoke at the notorious Operation Save America rally in Downtown Columbus in 2004 that included a viewing of a human fetus in a coffin that the group was transporting to Washington for burial. Event organizers filed city burn permits to incinerate a copy of the Qu`ran, as well as rainbow flags).

...

But lately, Daubenmire’s new-media cultivation of his Christian, Libertarian-minded outrage (he bears no official ties to the Libertarian Party of Ohio) has landed him multiple appearances on Fox News, Geraldo Rivera’s talk show, and, according to his website, Hannity and Colmes, the CBS Evening News, The Edge with Paula Zahn and Scarborough County on MSNBC.

...

He attributes the demand from mass media outlets like Fox News for his appearance to two things: “number one, I’m uncompromising, I say what I think. And number two, I think I can articulate it in a way that people understand.”

Though Daubenmire sees no compromise in dialogues over crucial public policy issues such as health care reform, reproductive rights or gay marriage, he insists it isn’t because he is without empathy for those he refers to on his website as the “enemies of god.”

“I don’t get mad at my opposition because I used to think like them. I was a hell-raising, partying, carousing, howling dog. I’ve lived the sinful side. I know how that makes you think, makes you act,” said Daubenmire, a born-again evangelical who converted from Catholicism at 35.

The burden of being disliked, hated even, weighs on him he said comparing himself to the Apostle Paul. “’Do I now become your enemy because I tell the truth?’ That’s how I feel a lot of the time—I just speak the truth and make enemies.”

 

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"A Gathering of Eagles"

Pass the Salt Ministries (yes, you read that right) has big news for right-wing activists in Ohio -  a bevy of second and third-tier Religious Right leaders will be gracing their fair state later this month for "A Gathering of Eagles":  

"A Gathering of Eagles" is taking place in Coshocton, Ohio on December 14-15 as some of America's finest Christian leaders are gathering for a Leadership Summit and Biblical Worldview Conference. Dr. Alan Keyes is confirmed as the keyniote [sic] speaker and will be joined by the likes of Rev. Flip Benham, Chaplain E. Ray Moore Jr. , Rev. Rick Scarborough, Peter Labarbera, and Pastor Ernie Sanders and others. This NON-POLITICAL event is designed to educate Christians about the great moral issues facing this country. Learn the truth from the front lines in the cultural war regarding issues such as The Gay Agenda, Abortion, Individual Liberty, Hate Crime Legislation, and the religion of Secular Humanism.

This doesn’t really sound like a “non-political” event at all.  In fact, it sounds likes a distinctly political event designed to rally right-wing voters heading into the Republican primaries and general election.  After all, Rick Scarborough has endorsed Mike Huckabee and is currently in the midst of an “all out effort to move Values Voters to vote their values on Election Day '08” while Alan Keyes is currently running for President (though you’d be forgiven for not knowing that.)

As for Pass the Salt, it is the brainchild of Dave Daubenmire:  

[A] veteran 25 year high school football coach, [Daubenmire] was spurred to action when attacked and eventually sued by the ACLU in the late 1990’s for alledgedly [sic] mixing prayer with his coaching. After a two year battle for his 1st Amendment rights and a determination to not back down, the ACLU relented and offered coach an out of court settlement. God honored his stand and the ACLU backed off. Coach’s courageous stand, an inspiration to Americans everywhere, demonstrated that the ACLU can be defeated. As a result of the experience, Coach heard the call to move out of coaching a high school team, to the job of coaching God’s team.

Of course, the claim that ACLU “relented and offered coach an out of court settlement” is accurate only if you ignore the fact that Daubenmire was ordered to stop leading religious activities at school and the school board agreed to pay an estimated $18,000 settlement.

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