CNN's Christiane Amanpour interviewed Vision Americas’ Rick Scarborough for her series "God's Warrirors" amidst his seventy-week “crusade” to save America and rally right-wing voters ahead of next year’s election. In this clip, Scarborough rails against sex education, hate crimes legislation, and gay marriage while calling for the impeachment of federal judges.
Transcript after the jump
SCARBOROUGH: We need to realize the seriousness of the hour. It is not the left that is wrecking the country. It is the Christian who is doing nothing.
AMANPOUR: Pastor Rick Scarborough is on a crusade across America.
SCARBOROUGH: For a Christian not to vote is a sin.
AMANPOUR: He's traveling the country holding church rallies from now until Election Day 2008. SCARBOROUGH: Here is the danger you need to see.
AMANPOUR: Like many of his Christian counterparts, he believes America has lost its moral footing.
SCARBOROUGH: Christians don't lose until they quit.
AMANPOUR: And his mission is to raise an army of Christian voters to fix that.
SCARBOROUGH: Evangelical Christians are estimated between 50 million and 80 million. We are the largest voting bloc in America. If 75 percent of them vote their values, we win.
I'm not a Republican. I'm not a Democrat. I'm a Christ-ocrat. My allegiance is to Jesus Christ. Whenever there is a party that presents itself as a party of values, they're going to benefit from what I do.
AMANPOUR: Rick Scarborough is a Baptist preacher by trade.
SCARBOROUGH: We were making progress. We have a conservative Congress. We're losing ground now.
AMANPOUR: And author of books with provocative titles such as "Enough is Enough" and "Liberalism Kills Kids."
His interest in politics began when he attended an AIDS prevention lecture at his daughter's public high school in Texas, which he felt was too explicit and sent an immoral message.
SCARBOROUGH: Every form of sex is fair game, just make sure you use a condom.
AMANPOUR: Scarborough took his indignation to his congregation.
SCARBOROUGH: Never my entire life have I seen a group of Baptists get so mad. We wound up encouraging our people to run for public office.
AMANPOUR: Church members took over the local school board and the city council and while their victory was short-lived, Scarborough had found his calling. He turned to Jerry Falwell for guidance to take his message national.
SCARBOROUGH: He said, Rick, he said since you're not well known what you need are visible people who will lend you their name and recognition.
AMANPOUR: With Falwell's blessing and support, Scarborough started Vision America in 1998.
SCARBOROUGH: Talk about 70 weeks to save America, a one-day crusade and so forth.
AMANPOUR: Its goal? Get pastors out from behind the pulpit and involved in politics.
SCARBOROUGH: In this wonderful system that we have, he who has the most votes wins. Where better for a pastor to be involved?
AMANPOUR: He's a fixture at places where he sees America's religious foundation under assault. Places like Alabama, where a court ruled that a monument with the Ten Commandments placed on public property was illegal.
SCARBOROUGH: If people of faith in this country don't understand at this point, it is time to stand up and say enough is enough, then it is lost as a culture.
AMANPOUR: Carrying on the religious right's war on liberalism, Scarborough accuses America's activist judges of being the problem.
SCARBOROUGH: In 1962, it was the judges and not the people who said you cannot pray in public school. In 1973, it was the judges not the people who said that a woman had the right to kill a baby in their womb. It was judges not the people in Massachusetts who opened the flood gate for homosexual marriages.
AMANPOUR: Scarborough's solution?
SCARBOROUGH: One impeachment of a judge legislating from the bench would serve notice to all the judges that it's no longer going to be tolerated and once again you have judges put there to do what they should do. On its face it is an evil, wicked law.
AMANPOUR: He gets riled up about pending congressional legislation that would expand federal hate crimes law to include homosexuals.
SCARBOROUGH: I have nothing against homosexuals as people but it's going to declare that if you preach God's word and say that Romans I is applicable to this society and homosexual is in fact a sin as the Bible says, you're speaking hate speech and the next step then is fining the preacher or incarcerating the preacher for speaking out to what he typically believes.
AMANPOUR: Critics call that scare-mongering, a conservative Christian who wants to impose his values on the entire culture -- a man who infuriates people.
SCARBOROUGH: I'm very sorry about that. I'm infuriated that my children were forced into sex education that taught them that anal sex, oral sex, and other forms of sex was just fine. God almighty is calling us to be the church of the living god in the public place as well as in the worship place.
AMANPOUR: Between now and Election Day, Scarborough hopes to speak in person to 140,000 people.
SCARBOROUGH: As the watchmen, we must shout the word of warning as we see the danger coming.
