Controversial Beck rally is an event heavier on religion than politics

Fox News conservative commentator Glenn Beck and former Alaska Gov.
Sarah Palin (R) urged thousands gathered at a Saturday rally at the Lincoln
Memorial to turn toward God and conservative values with the nation at
a “crossroads.”

Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally, on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, repeatedly emphasized
religion and the faith of the country’s Revolutionary founders. He said
the event was not meant to be political, but to honor the country’s
military service members and veterans.

{mosads}”America today begins to turn back toward God,” Beck told a crowd
estimated at more than 100,000 that stretched from the steps of the
memorial on the banks of the reflecting pool to the World War II
memorial. Attendees waved flags including the “Don’t tread on me”
banner, a Revolutionary War icon and adopted symbol of the conservative
Tea Party movement.

“Today is a day to start the hearts of Americans again, and it has nothing to do with politics,” Beck said.

Beck
said he asked Palin, the 2008 vice presidential GOP nominee and a potential
2012 presidential candidate, to speak as the mother of a U.S. soldier.
Palin’s son Track is a soldier in U.S. Army and has served in Iraq.

“I’ve been asked to speak today not as a politician; no, something
more, much more. I’ve been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier,
and I’m proud of that distinction. You know, say what you want to say
about me, but I raised a combat vet, and you can’t take that away from
me,” Palin said.

Palin called the setting “the symbolic crossroads of our nation’s
history” and invoked Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King during
a patriotic speech peppered with biblical language.

She struck
also struck a defiant note, arguing that men and women in uniform are a
force for good in the U.S. and shouldn’t be the subject of apologies
from the American government.

“We must not fundamentally transform America as some would want,  — we
must restore America and restore her honor,” Palin said to loud
applause. Beck and conservative critics of the administration have
argued that President Obama is “fundamentally transforming” the country
in the wrong direction.

Beck came under heavy criticism for holding the rally on the
anniversary of King’s speech. The Rev. Al Sharpton led a dueling rally
Saturday, marching to the planned site of the King memorial between the Lincoln
and Jefferson memorials.

“Today, the Tea Party and allied conservatives are trying to break
that national stance on justice and, in turn, break the crux of what
the civil rights movement symbolized and what Dr. King fought and
literally died for,” read the rally release on Sharpton’s National
Action Network website.

At Sharpton’s rally, NAACP President Ben Jealous said that the day of Obama’s inauguration felt like “our country was a place of big hearts and big minds. And for a year and
a half we have been subjected to small hearts and small minds on our
small screens.”

Jealous took digs at the Beck rally, where attendees had been implored on the event website to not bring “signs political or otherwise.”

“No. 1 on their list is don’t bring your
sign,” Jealous said. “No. 2 on their list is don’t bring your gun. What is our
country coming to?”

On CNN Saturday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson accused Beck of mocking the King legacy.

“I really think that he’s mimicking Dr. King, in some sense humiliating
the tradition,” Jackson said. “And one can hardly imagine Glenn Beck marching from
Selma to Montgomery with Dr. King or going to jail in Birmingham with
Dr. King.”

Sharpton’s rally included Martin Luther King III; Beck’s rally featured King’s niece, Alveda King, as a speaker.

“If
Uncle Martin could be here today he would surely commend us for giving
honor where honor is due,” Alveda King said to loud cheers. Her speech
carried the same “I have a dream” refrain, as she called for a greater
role for religion in public life.

Beck said the rally was not “only a bunch of Tea Partiers” but
included an unidentified Democratic speaker who took a great personal
risk to appear.

“That person stood on this stage because of
honor. There’s a lot we can disagree on, but our values and our
principles can unite us. We must discover them again,” Beck said.

While the rally focused largely on religion, many of those
attending the rally were visible supporters of the Tea Party, donning T-shirts, hats and buttons from allied conservative groups, including
Americans for Prosperity.

Tom Stirling of Savannah, Ga., rode up to Washington with the “13th Colony Patriots” in three busloads from his home state.

“I’ve
been watching this outrageous spending from George W. Bush on down,”
Stirling told The Hill. “It’s like the escalator is on high speed. We
can’t sustain this.”

“I’m not Republican,” he said. “I’m not Democrat. I just want smaller government.”

Palin
spent a large portion of her speech honoring three combat veterans from
Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam, recounting their stories of bravery and
holding them up as examples of the strength and compassion of the
American people.

“Today we honor fallen around the world. We honor those that served
something greater than self, who made the ultimate sacrifice,” Palin
said. “Also, those that did come home forever changed by the
battlefied. Though this rally is about restoring honor for these men
and women, honor was never lost.”

Palin closed by asking the crowd to summon similar courage while
facing the ongoing economic recession and the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. She asked the crowd to turn the rally into a point of
inflection.

“I know that many of us today — we are worried about
what we face, sometimes our challenges they just seem insurmountable,”
Palin said. “But here together at the crossroads of our history, may
this day be the change point. Look around you, you’re not alone. You
are Americans.”

“You have the same steel spine and moral courage of Washington and
Lincoln and Martin Luther King. It is in you, it will sustain you as it
sustained them.”