This IS a lobbying group and this IS a group which involves itself regarding specific legislation, in spite of the disclaimer to the contrary. This advert for an upcoming event on Monday at the legislature really does not represent, as they claim, a variety of religious backgrounds. It is a pretty much straight-up extremist Christian group, including a Jews-for-Jesus entity focused on converting Jews to Christianity, much like the one that drew so much opposition by offending Jews nationwide when President Bush spoke at, the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute, back on November 14, 2013.
Let us not pretend this has diddly squat to do with religious freedom; this has EVERYTHING to do with imposing a particularly noxious and toxic form of radical right wing Christianity on all of us, as a more or less overt and formalized oppressive fundie Theocracy.
The one thing the do NOT want is true religious liberty for all; they want it only for themselves, at the expense of the rest of us. These people deny basic reality, they include the science deniers who oppose teaching Evolution and who think Jesus and the disciples might have ridden around on dinosaurs. These include large swathes of people who believe the earth is only 6,000 years old, and of course the omnipresent anthropogenic climate change deniers. These people want to dumb down and outright stupefy our educational system, including not only creationism and badly revisionist history and literature, as well, they also want to enforce factually inaccurate and dangerously misleading abstinence only sex-ed (if it is permitted to be taught at all).
And of course, along with the Minnesota Family Council, one of the supporting and endorsing organizations that circulated this little announcement, these people want to condone and continue to protect the most UN-Christian bullying in our school, in the name of Jesus-loves-you, to give cover to their hatred and homophobia.
Shame on these people, shame on them for their hatred and bigotry, shame on them for trying to inject religion in appropriately into politics, and shame on them for their insulting disrespect for other faiths like Judaism. This is bad, this is wrong, this is NOT who we are in Minnesota. Shame on these people for their willful ignorance and intolerance. They are an embarrassment to politics and government in Minnesota. Instead of banning distinguished Republicans like Arne Carlson and Al Quie, the MN GOP should be getting rid of THESE people, if they want any respect as a serious political party genuinely interested in responsible governing.