I attended a few Kennedy events over the years. While Kennedy never achieved the prominence of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, his ministry is notable for a number of reasons. The sheer volume of Religious Right propaganda it cranked out is one of them. Over the years, a steady stream of books, pamphlets, tapes and DVDs issued from Fort Lauderdale, attacking evolution, blasting gay people and arguing that America was meant to be a "Christian nation."

Kennedy rarely tried to soft-pedal his beliefs and was up-front about the type of country he wanted to see. He frankly espoused theocracy, and when he spoke of a "Christian nation," I can assure you he had a very specific type of Christianity in mind - one that would have excluded millions of Americans who attend Christian churches.

(Seven years ago, I pulled together some Kennedy quotes from books he had written. Are his views extreme? Read them and judge for yourself.)

I suppose there's something refreshing in Kennedy's candor, but to be honest, I always found it unnerving as well. Falwell evolved into a kind of buffoon, and Robertson has said things that make one doubt his sanity - but Kennedy remained steely-eyed, dour and severe, always sure of his beliefs and equally certain those beliefs bestowed on him the right to tell us how to live our lives.

I saw no joy at Kennedy's meetings. They were grim and always had a dark edge. America was portrayed as a truly wicked place, a country where evil held sway and the godly were kept down. Kennedy's followers smiled as they talked about how the sinful and wicked would get what is coming to them. At one event I attended, I heard people speak with pride about how they had ended all communication with their gay children. This was held up as an example of "family values."

Attending Kennedy events was like stepping into some bizarre alternative universe where communists invented the separation of church and state, public school teachers work overtime to corrupt children and "secular humanists" have seized control of all media, education systems, the entertainment industry and pretty much every other institution that affects life in America. There was a certain paranoia about the whole thing - but it was always tinged with the rather uncomfortable idea that the enemies of God would get what they deserved after the true Christians rose up again.

Many of the people I've met at Religious Right meetings over the years are consumed with a faith that all too often seems grounded in division and rage. They embrace a vision of faith that buttresses their fundamental prejudices and pet right-wing political notions. Nowhere was this clearer than at the Kennedy meetings I attended.

A psychologist might be able to explain why people are seduced by such negative movements. Advocates of church-state separation have a different task: making sure a theology of hate does not become the basis for our system of laws.