The Promise Keepers, an evangelical Christian men’s groups whose goal is to “take back the nation for Jesus” and restore men’s leadership role in the family, held a gathering of more than 12,000 men at a basketball arena in Hartford, Connecticut this weekend. Exhibitors at the recent gathering included “Jews for Jesus,” a group that encourages Jews to find “grace and salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ” and sells products with the logo “Jesus Made Me Kosher.” Another exhibitor, Exodus International, claims to help gay and lesbian people recover from “sexual brokenness” by transforming them into heterosexuals. Funders of the Promise Keepers’ anti-woman, anti-lesbian/gay, and anti-abortion agenda include Pat Robertson, the religious right media mogul and founder of the Christian Coalition, Bill Bright’s Campus Crusade for Christ, Gary Bauer’s Family Research Council, and the DeMoss family foundation. Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney has been a featured speaker for Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group whose members have been linked to attacks on abortion clinics and doctors. Although the Promise Keepers cannot, by law, close its meetings to women, the women that do attend its events are relegated to supportive roles as “helpers” to their male leaders. The New York Times reported that 450 of the 800 volunteers working at the Hartford gathering were women, many of whom worked selling Promise Keepers books and products. Amazingly, many of the Promise Keeper wives seem to revel in the supposed righteousness of their submission. Thirty-four-year-old Patricia Rock, whose husband Jim and young sons attended the recent Promise Keepers gathering, said, “Men are the leaders. Whether Jim is right or wrong, God will bless me for going along with what he says.”
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