The New York Times profiled David Lane today and his effort to bring Republican presidential candidates, conservative pastors and Religious Right activists together, hoping that his effort will culminate in 1,000 pastors running for elected office.
Lane has brought GOP hopefuls and activists, such as members of the Republican National Committee, on trips to Europe and Israel and convened “Pastors and Pews” events in early primary states, all which he hopes will spawn a stronger movement and move candidates to the right:
“An army,” he said. “That’s the goal.”
And Mr. Lane is positioning himself as a field marshal. A fast-talking and born-again veteran of conservative politics with experience in Washington, Texas and California, Mr. Lane, 60, travels the country trying to persuade evangelical clergy members to become politically active.
…
What Mr. Lane, a former public relations man, does have going for him is a decentralized landscape in which a determined believer with an extensive network of ground-level evangelical leaders and a limitless capacity for talking on the phone can exert influence on Republican presidential candidates eager to reach evangelical voters.
In an interview with the Times, Lane did chide one top Republican, Jeb Bush, for hiring an openly gay spokesman.
Of course, Lane doesn’t want to elect just any Republican candidate for president, but one who is loyal to the Religious Right when it comes to issues such as abortion rights, LGBT equality and judicial nominees. It appears that his criticism of Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith during the 2008 primary race hasn’t affected his relationship with Republican leaders.
In Lane’s vision for the U.S., the country must do away with the separation of church and state and stop tolerating gay people in order to avoid divine punishment.
As we’ve reported, Lane has:
- Argued that “homosexuals praying at the Inauguration” of President Obama in 2013 will provoke God’s wrath in the form of “car bombs in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Des Moines, Iowa.”
- Feared that God might destroy the U.S. just as he punished Nazi Germany: “If we get judgment like Nazi Germany, I’m assuming we go to rebel, and God says ‘I’m done.’”
- Urged conservative Christians to prepare for martyrdom in their fight to “save the nation from the pagan onslaught imposing homosexual marriage [and] homosexual scouts.”
- Warned that homosexuality has created an unparalleled “moral crisis” and “threatened our utter destruction.”
- Predicted that homosexuality will lead to the destruction of America: “Homosexual desire and marriage is unnatural and — more so — is a symptom of advanced cultural decay and precursor to the collapse of the Republican Party and the nation…. The mark of a decadent society is the exaltation and normalization of sin — which leads to the death.”
- Attacked gay Republicans Richard Tisei and Ken Mehlman along with GOP marriage equality supporters Rob Portman, Laura Bush, Barbara Bush and Cindy McCain for trying “to impose homosexual marriage — and indecency — on Christian America.”
- Compared Republicans who support marriage equality to politicians who backed slavery in the run-up to the Civil War.
- Called the separation of church and state a “lie” and a “fabricated whopper” used to stop “Christian America – the moral majority – from imposing moral government on pagan public schools, pagan higher learning and pagan media.”
- Said America needs a “thorough cleaning from pornography, abortion, homosexuality, filth from TV and Hollywood, racism, and injustice.”
- Disclosed that “our long-term strategy must be to place the Bible in Public Schools as the principle [sic] textbook of American education.”
