Forwarded to me by my friend and colleague Hollie Ainbinder, Rabbi Rami Shapiro (both of Murfreesboro, Tenn.) wrote Walk Humbly with God:
Last night Middle Tennesseans for Religious Freedom held a rally in support of the First Amendment, religious diversity, and our local Muslim community whose property was vandalized yet again this past weekend. I was invited to be one of the speakers. ...What did every newspaper in middle Tennessee quote me as saying? Not “walk humbly with your God,” but “walk comfortably with your God.” Comfortably? Are you serious? This is the problem: people are too comfortable with their gods; so comfortable that they don’t challenge them or the insanity of much of what they have to say. And the true God, Reality itself, is discomforting. God challenges you to step out of your comfort zone: to leave nationalism, ethnicity, and parental bias behind, and to travel into the unknown and ultimately unknowable realm of divine mystery (Genesis 12:1). The only response to this call is an uncomfortable humility.
A rare sign, though sort of on the edge of the rally.
My friend and collaborator Matthew Bradley tweeted "The Beck rally is kind of like watching TV, but outside. Lots of camp chairs. Middle area of rally roped off and low crowd density in spots."
It certainly wasn't like that for me, but I was virtually the only one there with a sign. As I was told repeatedly "Glenn said no signs!" I typically responded that they were free to gather and I was free to have my sign. Prompted lots of discussion and debate, some was silly, some was thoughtful; some was rude, some was amazingly gentle.
I'd thought the standard rationale for the no signs policy was right -- organizers are afraid of something vitriolic coming out and causing a stir. But Beck says lots of silly things, so I guess they want to maintain his monopoly.
But I think a deeper reason is that the organizers might not want an outbreak of democracy even within these ranks. They want, as Matthew notes, to simulate the TV experience. They don't want lively discussion among "outsiders" or for that matter among the assembled. You could have an authentic populist movement and not a stage-managed affair.