Anti-cloning rallies enlist pastors
SPRINGFIELD – Rick Scarborough, founder of Vision America, has accomplished a mfjor part of what he set out to do in Missouri.
In July, Scarborough announced plans for five cloning rallies throughout the state that would be organized with the goal of mobilizing pastors to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment that would ensure the spread of embryonic stem cell research (human cloning) in Missouri. With the successful execution of a Sept. 21 rally at Central Assembly of God in Springfield, Scarborough announced that approximately 5,400 attendees had participated in the meetings at Jefferson City, Cape Girardeau, St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield.
About 800 came to Springfield to hear Scarborough and noted conservative orator Alan Keyes speak. Scarborough, a Southern Baptist, and Keyes, a Roman Catholic, are close friends who stood for a united faith community at every juncture.
“We accomplished what we wanted to accomplish,” Scarborough said. “We got our message out through the press. We had thousands of people attend, and we enlisted about 500 pastors to go back and duplicate this effort through their churches.”
Two more rallies have been added—Oct. 28 at St. Alphonsus Liguori (Rock) Church in downtown St. Louis, and Oct. 30 at Immaculate Conception Parish – Dardenne in Dardenne Prairie. Scarborough described the “Rock” church as black, Catholic and charismatic. Keyes will speak there. Ray Flynn, former American ambassador to the Vatican, will speak at the Dardenne Prairie church. Another rally may be held in St. Joseph.
“Will the church be the church, or will she roll over and go back to sleep?” Scarborough said.
The objective right now is for the church to close ranks so that she can have a fighting chance to carry the vote and defeat Amendment 2 on Nov. 7.
“We can win,” said John Marshall, pastor of Second Baptist Church, Springfield, who introduced Scarborough at the rally. “I truly believe we have the votes to do it. There’s no doubt that when the Christians of Missouri unite, they can carry an election.”
A Kansas City Star columnist recently wrote that Keyes is a demagogue. In a news conference before the Springfield rally, the Ph.D. from Harvard University, who wrote his dissertation on constitutional theory, said he felt sorry for the columnist.
“The word ‘demagogue’ means that you come before people offering them goodies, like you offer candy to children,” Keyes said. “The purpose of offering them those goodies is to corrupt them and to get them away from the principles of their liberty. So in any given situation for the American people, the demagogues are the ones who come to you saying, ‘We will give you longer life. We will give you health. We will give you cures, and all you have to do is give up the principle that we are all created equal and adopt the principle that equality only applies after 14 days or three months or three years or whenever your masters tell you that you are now going to be treated with equal dignity.’
“I think the demagogues in a situation like this are the people who are flattering their passions, raising the hopes, seeking somehow to reward the material aspirations of the people at the expense of the principles that make them free. So in this particular situation, I don’t know why anybody would apply that name ‘demagogue’ to me. I’m the one who’s willing to speak the truth even when it doesn’t flatter people because I believe that it’s what’s required for this country.”
