Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Last week's Family Impact Summit in Florida turned out to be quite a bust:
A conservative Christian summit at a Florida church last weekend attracted only about half as many people as organizers had hoped.By Friday evening, just over 100 people had registered to hear speakers that included Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Southern Baptist leader Richard Land, former presidential candidate Gary Bauer and the American Family Association's Don Wildmon.
A workshop on grass roots activism drew a handful of people -- and one was a spy, an activist for Americans United for Separation of Church and State researching the opposition.
Heck, they had almost that many religious right luminaries speaking at the event. The list included not only bigwigs like Tony Perkins and Gary Bauer, but my personal favorite looney tune, Katherine Harris. You know, the one who kept saying that God had told her to run for the Senate last year and spend millions of her own money only to see her get beaten like a red-headed stepchild.
Donald Wildmon was there too, but one wonders how on earth he got there without inadvertently supporting the "radical gay agenda." As I pointed out a couple weeks ago, it's almost impossible to get from here to there without giving your business to a company that gets a perfect 100 rating from the Human Rights Campaign for their corporate policies toward gay and lesbian employees.
Every major American airline scores at least an 80. Every major car company scores a perfect 100. Maybe all the speakers went Greyhound. Heck, maybe that's why the attendance was so low, all their followers stayed home rather than giving their hard-earned money to a company that actually treats gays and lesbians as human beings.
Comments
Ah, they blew the AUSC's spy's cover! How dare they!
Posted by: Shawn Wilkinson | October 3, 2007 10:02 AM
Is it me or does the expected number of 200 still seem really small considering the political weight of the people they had speaking? I'd think they should have been able to pull way more than that, especially in Florida.
I mean with Tony Perkins there I would have thought they could have at least gotten the White Supremacist contingent to show up.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | October 3, 2007 11:20 AM
Posted by: Alex, FCD | October 3, 2007 12:57 PM
Interesting that the term "spy" was used. It doesn't seem that they were trying to keep this conference a secret, so why would someone who simply doesn't happen to be in lockstep with their views be a "spy"? Are they hiding something? Are they covering up secrets? Are they (gasp!) breaking the biblical commandments against lying???
Posted by: Alison | October 3, 2007 1:02 PM
He reassured himself by pointing out that at least he's still contributing to global warming.
Posted by: Wes | October 3, 2007 5:46 PM
By my count, they had just over three participants for every one speaker. Pitiful. I could hold a yard sale and get a better turnout.
Posted by: General Zia | October 4, 2007 1:38 AM
Ed, I was appalled to see your victimisation of Ginger Kids, especially those from a broken home.
Appalled, shocked I tell you.
After all, its not their fault they contracted gingervitis.
Posted by: John S | October 4, 2007 9:22 PM