Bradlee Dean — the controversial preacher who on Friday questioned President Obama’s Christianity in a prayer on the Minnesota House floor — went on his radio show Saturday to say his prayer “didn’t have anything to do with Obama.”
Dean was blown away by the response to his prayer, he said on his radio program, Sons of Liberty. “I went into them chambers with total respect [sic],” he said. “I feel like Martin Luther, innocently nailing the 95 theses on the wall, and I’m not even Catholic.”
At one point, a caller from Minneapolis challenged Dean to admit he was, in fact, referring to Obama. “That’s splitting hairs,” Dean responded.
“I didn’t say we weren’t a Christian nation, Obama did,” Dean said. “If you want to point the finger at someone denying Christianity in our country, you might want to talk to Obama about it, because I didn’t say it.”
From Dean’s prayer Friday:
“I know this is a non-denominational prayer in this chamber and it’s not about the Baptists and it’s not about the Catholics alone or the Lutherans or the Wesleyans,” Bradlee Dean said, sporting a track suit and long ponytail, “or the Presbyterians, the evangelicals or any other denomination, but rather the head of the denomination and his name is Jesus. As every President up until 2008 has acknowledged. And we pray it. In Jesus’ name.”
After Dean’s prayer, the Legislature went into a frenzy. A number of legislators released statements condemning Dean’s appearance, and Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Zellers (R) invited the regular House chaplain to give a second prayer, and the House recited the Pledge of Allegiance and roll call again.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports Rep. Ernie Leidiger (R) invited Dean to deliver the morning prayer. He told the Star Tribune he wasn’t aware of Dean’s anti-homosexual position.
Leidiger said Dean adheres to “radical thinking — that kind of thinking, I think back to Nazi Germany.”
A sampling of Dean’s positions include: saying homosexuality is essentially against the law and asserting there is no difference between Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama.
But Jake MacAulay, Dean’s co-host on Sons of Liberty, insisted that Dean’s prayer was not an attack on Obama.
“He was saying that all of the presidents up until 2008 (acknowledged Christianity),” MacAulay told TPM. “That tradition stopped at that point.”
So which president does it sound like he was referring to?
David Taintor
David Taintor is TPM’s News Editor. He contributes to TPM’s Livewire coverage, among other areas. David is from Chanhassen, Minnesota, where, yes, it gets very cold. Reach him at taintor [at] talkingpointsmemo.com
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