AFA Hawks 'Pay to Pray' America

JESUSLAND—It's not just that the folks at the American Family Association believe that citizens need to pray for America, because "our children and grandchildren will be paying for our collective sins their entire lives if we don’t change directions quickly," but they are also big believers in paying to pray for America. Pay the AFA, that is. This message was delivered unto our email inbox this morning: "We are facing the most critical and important election this nation has ever faced," it read, without adding much more detail about why it's so critical and important. But we can easily fill in the blanks. The AFA and its leader Tim Wildmon, son of Don, are well known for their opposition to gay rights, sexual freedom, same-sex marriage and anything else that fails to conform to their scripted... er, scriptural world view. Or put another way... pray for America. Like its fellow hate group, [Im]Morality in Media, however, the God fear-mongering folk at AFA seem to be a little hard up for greenbacks. Thus, the email hawking the sale of Pray for America buttons and bumper stickers. They come in packs of 10 up to 100, costing from $10 up to $68, depending on whether you are a button or bumper sticker person. But they also have "Church Packs," with the large pack, containing 100 buttons and 20 stickers, running $90, and the small (50 buttons and 10 stickers) going for $55. For the ambitiously devout (or fearful), a Display Box with 250 buttons can be had for $150. The campaign to sell Pray for America buttons, though seemingly political in nature, is also politically vague. As the emails states, "I PRAY FOR AMERICA is a prayer movement seeking God’s forgiveness for our corporate and personal sins." It fails to explain what they mean by "corporate sins," but my guess is that it refers to those corporations that still provide health coverage for contraception. Lord knows it isn't a call to pray for those that don't. Now isn't that worth a few bucks worth of prayer?