On November 1, 2008, I attended The Call -- a rally organized by Lou Engle at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium -- attended by 33,000 (according to organizer estimates) over a twelve hour period. Citing the state's "fog of Jezebel confusion," Engle organized this incarnation of The Call to support Proposition 8, a California ballot proposition that would ban same-sex marriage in the state.
During the event, Engle warned that the decadence in the state "will release a spirit that is more demonic than Islam." The Call is a large-scale traveling revival meeting that purports to offer participants an edifying day of fasting and prayer away from the temptations of secular culture. My documentation of the event can be seen in this video.
The "call" of the title was to spiritual warfare -- to "break the 40-year Berkeley rebellion" (a reference to what they see as the rampant spread of secular values following the Berkeley protests of the 1960s) and to cleanse the city of San Francisco. Engle's apocalyptic battle cry, "As California goes, so goes the nation" was the underlying theme of the event -- if the "sanctity of marriage" falls in the trendsetting state of California, the nation won't be far behind. The crowd was reminded by Engle, James Dobson, Tony Perkins and others of a Christian right maxim: the traditional family structure forms the foundation of a Godly society and to undermine it is to join forces with the Antichrist.
Max Blumenthal has more on the man behind Prop 8.