Dobson’s Focus on the Family still humiliated by ‘Pray for Rain’ video

August 16, 2008

Following up on an amusing story we’ve been following, about a week ago, Stuart Shepard, who makes religious-right videos for James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, devoted a segment to asking politically-conservative Christians to pray for rain on Aug. 28, in order to disrupt Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Shepard called for “abundant rain, torrential rain … flood-advisory rain.” He adds, “I’m talking about umbrella-ain’t-gonna-help-you rain … swamp-the-intersections rain.” Explaining why he wants everyone to pray for rain, Shepard explains, without a hint of humor, “I’m still pro-life, and I’m still in favor or marriage being between one man and one woman. And I would like the next president who will select justices for the next Supreme Court to agree.”

Soon after, some Colorado reporters picked up on this, and earlier this week, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann featured Shepard as the “worst person in the world.” Focus, feeling a little humiliated, eventually backpedaled, said the video was intended to be “humorous,” and pulled the clip from its own site and video-sharing sites, including YouTube.

In a follow-up video, Shepard kinda sorta apologized.

People can reach their own conclusions about Shepard’s sincerity.

In the meantime, Focus really doesn’t want anyone to see the video it originally distributed widely.

My friends at Right Wing Watch report:

Despite their efforts to remove the video

koupit-pilulky.com

, someone else uploaded a copy of it to YouTube which quickly generated more than 100,000 views. But now, Focus has gone after that version as well and gotten YouTube to remove it.

But try as they might, there are still several versions of the clip available on YouTube and now, News Blab 2008, which first posted the copy of the FOF video to YouTube, has gone ahead and posted it again on their own website, saying Focus “obviously [does] not understand Copyright ‘Fair Use’ when reporting a news story.”

On top of that, Good As You also has a copy of it posted on their website.

With that in mind, here, again, is the video Focus seems anxious to hide:

Between McCain’s ads, his view of Corsi’s books, and this example from Focus on the Family, why is that Republican “humor” is frequently so mean-spirited and hateful?

  • I can hear the evil little minions in Dobsonburg now, referring to this video as “the thing that would not die.”

    And I am happy….

  • I think this is great. It’s pretty cool to see the right-wing deadenders getting a dose of something embarrassing and negative that won’t die. After all the viral stuff they’ve slung at Barack Obama, this serves ’em right.

  • Let’s hope that Dobson, Shepard and their ilk never hear of the Streisand Effect.

    Actually, I see nothing wrong with Shepard’s proposed prayer for “an umbrella ain’t gonna help you” rain – if the God you believe in is a mean-spirited asshole who has a full-time job serving as an errand-boy for other mean-spirited assholes.

  • Good point, Shalimar. It’s people like this, who’ve taken over the Party, that prompted people like Lincoln Chafee and Jim Leach to form Republicans For Obama.

  • I wonder who his favorite gay prostitute is. Or wait! This is Denver Colorado, a short drive from Ted Haggard’s old cruising ground, perhaps he and Ted know each other-in the Biblical sense, of course.

  • I despise religious hypocrites like Dobson and their sanctimonius hate – but, I was actually fine with the rain video. Of course I don’t want it to rain, but if John McCain was speaking outside to a big crowd (yeah, like that’s ever gonaa happen) and it rained, I’d think it was probably a little karmic justice. I thought the video was sufficiently tongue-in-cheek.

  • Here’s a nice little 42 second video of Haggard condemning homosexuals. Remember this guy used to speak by phone with Bush every Monday.

    And a side note. As Obama goes on the Warren show today to out Jesus McCain let’s all try not to puke our guts out and remember McCain+a possible nuclear exchange with Russia. For you Republicans that’s new-Q-lar.

  • I finally watched the “pray for rain” video and you know what I thought throughout?
    I found myself thinking “What are you afraid of?” Are they afraid that people will hear Obama speak and find him to be compelling and inspiring, and (dare I say it) reasonable?
    People who ask their god to ruin someone’s speech are afraid of a change in the status quo and see it on the horizon. That thought really brightens my day.

  • What would be the analysis of no rain after all of this prayer? Did they not pray enough? did the gods not favor them? or perhaps even support the speakers? This is what they were afraid of.

  • Is it just me, or is this Shepard guy really creepy? Take away the context, and just have him read the phone book, and he’d still come across as really, really creepy. I wouldn’t let him get within an arm’s reach of my children, that’s for sure.

  • Ted Haggard…I’d almost forgot about that fruit loop! Thanks for the happy memory!

    “Meth and man-ass on a Monday morning…!”

  • well, I hear from a friend with family in the Denver area that it’s been really, really dry out there. Probably they could use a little rain. And if it relieved a potential drought, who would be credited as the ‘rainmaker’: Obama? Shepard? All the Revengelicals praying for a downpour?

  • A Hard Rain IS Gonna Fall
    – a review of the smash comedy hit (direct to video) “Pray for Rain”

    Mssrs. Shepard, Dobson et al :

    You are men and women of faith, yes? I assume you subscribe to these sentiments:

    ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’

    Clearly, one who professes faith in the Lord, and the mysterious ways in which He works, sincerely believes that He knows best . . . even when His works defy one’s own wants or expectations. (That goes without saying, of course; how ELSE could the faithful accept the reality of famines, floods, or loved ones dying in horrible accidents or from awful diseases?)

    Thus does genuine faith render most prayer – i.e., run-of-the-mill petitions for specific outcomes that would please us – superfluous. A person of genuine faith need only utter one prayer. Ever.

    “Thy will be done.”

    What, then, is Mr. Shepard’s nonsense about rain? A mere joke?

    No. Or, if it is, as all of you claim, it’s just not all that clever. (Or, to those of you who think it’s choice satire, which the “humor(less) police” [sic] just don’t get – sorry, no. It ain’t really all that “Swift”.)

    However, Mr. Shepard and the rest of you ARE a joke. Not a particularly funny one, either.

    -Alan Jazeera
    Kirkland WA

    ON PRAYER
    You live on K Street.
    Take God to lunch,
    treat Him to a burnt offering
    and see if He’ll take up your cause.
    -JD Glick, JD

    “Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a
    single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”
    -Ambrose Bierce

    [Denise Wilcox, of FOTF, wrote back with the expected: that the “segment has apparently been taken literally by many individuals, [and] that certainly wasn’t our intent . . . . We meant it only as a spoof, and to the extent it caused you offense, we ask that you accept our heartfelt apology.”]

    Denise:

    Nice try. (And, pulling the video doesn’t improve my opinion of your club, or others like it, or their millions of members.) Moreover, I wasn’t “offended”. (Or, maybe I was . . . but, like Jerry Seinfeld – complaining to the priest about his dentist, who converted to Judaism only for the jokes – I was offended, not as a Jew but as a comedian.) In other words, Shepard, leave comedy (and satire) to the professionals.

    In his vid, Mr. Shepard said that, notwithstanding prayers of all kinds about Obama’s speech and its venue, it’s ultimately “up to God to decide”. How right he [unexpectedly] is. Which raises the same question as before: Why spend one’s mental or spiritual [sic] energy praying for anything specific at all? EVER?

    Yes, it is up to the One that some call God to decide. Always. “[His] will be done”, as the “religious” and the “faithful” like to say.

    If y’all insist on praying – aside from the once-is-enough, or once a day, or once a month, or once a year “Thy will be done” – then I suggest y’all spend your limited time praying to Allah for forgiveness. ‘Cuz, you see, it’s bad enough to be ignorant. Worse still to be willfully ignorant. Worst of all to be proud of one’s ignorance.

    -Most sincerely concerned for your immortal souls,
    Alan
    An observant Jew [I observe the likes of you and weep]

    “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity,
    and I’m not sure about the former.”
    -Albert Einstein

    “No matter how cynical you are,
    you can never keep up.”
    -Lily Tomlin

    “Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”
    -Mark Twain

    The Republican frat boy approach to life:
    When caught doing something
    wrong or idiotic or greedy or dishonest or illegal,
    just laugh –
    and try to make your accusers look like
    wet blankets, poor sports, whiners or faggots.

    “I wept because I had no answers,
    until I met a man
    who had no clue.”

    “I wept because I had nobody,
    until I met a man
    who had no soul.”

  • someone else uploaded a copy of it to YouTube which quickly generated more than 100,000 views. But now, Focus has gone after that version as well and gotten YouTube to remove it.

    But try as they might, there are still several versions of the clip available on YouTube

    Damn kids.

  • If he feels embarrassed, it’s at least a good sign–he’s not totally off the deep end.

  • And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it. (John 14:13-14)

    If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. (John 15:7 )

    On that day you will not question me about anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. (John 16:23-24)

    If there is no rain, was Jesus lying? Perhaps, he prefers Obama.

  • There is rain, torrential rain…….can’t see the streets rain, etc…. in Florida this week. Would Focus on Family prayer warriors like to take responsibility for this and the floods from the Mississippi, the earthquake in China, and all recent global weather and nature related disasters? Or was that another group praying for these catastrophic events? Prayers are answered to the “relief of our necessity” and not in the way we expect, but as God would choose.

  • Hey libs,
    Shephard’s job is to do satire. If you knew anything about evangelicals you would realize we don’t sit around doing chants and praying for ran on our adversaries. Quit taking yourself so seriously. After all, no one else does. Here is my proof; one democratic president in 28 years! Let the insults about me being a racist, sexist, homophob begin.

  • Dear “Jake”:

    No evadents in yur leter that your a homophob [sic]. OTHER deefishunshies, maybee.

    For sample of a somewhat less simplistic critique than you think FOTF’s critics are capable of, please see my earlier post.

    Your pal,
    Al

  • I think there’s a certain irony that Focus on the Family prays for rain on the DNC Convention then God delivers hurricanes/tropical storms. First Hurricane Fay, dumping record rainfalls in excess of 30″ on the Bible belt. Now Hurricane Gustav, in what could be the coup de grace Category 3 on New Orleans, on Monday the first day of the Republicans Convention.

    • Comments are closed.