Will Evangelical Pastors Heed the GOP Dog Whistle in 2012?

While the Democrat base remains demoralized and apathetic, the extremists and religious fanatics of the GOP/Christianist camp are busy working to whip their mindless, objective reality denying followers into a frenzy. One of the main networks for achieving this goal is through Kool-Aid drinking pastors who are recruited to energize their easily swayed flocks. Here in Virginia, evangelical pastors react to the anti-democratic and discriminatory directives of The Family Foundation like dogs reacting to a dog whistle. As noted yesterday in the context of the vote of the North Carolina legislature, this includes black pastors even though their white masters in the Christianist organizations would happily role the clock back to the first half of the 19th century. The Sacramento Bee has a story looking at the efforts of the Christianists - including registered anti-gay hate groups - which ought to scare the Hell out of LGBT citizens. Here are highlights:

AMES, Iowa -- For most of his two decades as a preacher, Iowa pastor Mike Demastus eschewed partisanship, telling colleagues and congregants that "religion and politics don't mix." But there he was last month in Ames, making his way across the festive grounds of the Republican presidential straw poll, mingling with political operatives and candidates as he spoke openly about his preference for Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

He wasn't alone. The straw poll drew a slew of previously apolitical Iowa pastors - a constituency increasingly heeding a call to speak out on politics. There is a concerted assault on everything that we consider sacred - and we pastors need to move to the forefront of the battle," said Demastus, donned in T-shirt and shorts for the Saturday event.

Demastus represents a growing movement of evangelical pastors who are jumping into the electoral fray as never before, preaching political engagement from the pulpit as they mobilize for the 2012 election.

This new activism has substantial muscle behind it: a cadre of experienced Christian organizers and some of the conservative movement's most generous donors, who are setting up technologically sophisticated operations to reach pastors and their congregations in battleground states.

"The Christian activist right is the largest, best organized and, I believe, the most powerful force in American politics today," said Rob Stein, a Democratic strategist who recently provided briefings on the constituency to wealthy donors on the left. "No other political group comes even close."

The pastor movement is being guided and ministered to by a growing web of well-financed organizations that offer seminars, online tools and a battery of lawyers.

Tim Wildmon, who runs the American Family Association [a registered hate group], one of the most generous underwriters of Christian conservative activism, predicted that evangelicals in 2012 will match the fervency of the Ronald Reagan era - in large part because so many pastors are prodding their flocks to the polls. "They're going to be telling their parishioners to get registered and to make sure to go vote," he said. "I think it's huge."

Boosting the movement are veteran figures such as Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition. His new organization, Faith & Freedom Coalition, is developing a targeted list of Christian voters in key states, a tool it used to reach thousands of voters in Wisconsin's recent recall elections.

New players are even more ambitious. United in Purpose, financed by an anonymous group of Silicon Valley venture capitalists, aims to register 5 million conservative Christians to vote. The organization boasts a sophisticated database that identifies millions of unregistered evangelical and born-again Christian voters around the country.

As pastors speak out on political matters, they've drawn admonitions from groups such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which warns that such activism could jeopardize their churches' nonprofit status. But the religious leaders are bolstered by well-funded Christian legal organizations supporting their cause.

My thoughts on this? Be afraid if you value religious freedom and equality under the law for all citizens. These pastors and their folks are providing the foot soldiers for those who cheer allowing the uninsured to die and the free and wide use of the death penalty. In some ways, they represent a new form of Neo-Nazi movement disguised under the cloak of religion. They are a clear and present danger to democracy.