Dobson blasts separation during N.C. rally for marriage amendment.

Religious Right leader James C. Dobson bashed church-state separation and the federal judges who have upheld it during a rally in North Carolina last month.

The event was sponsored by Dobson's new political outfit, Focus on the Family Action, and was supposed to locus on the Federal Marriage Amendment. But Dobson quickly veered into a whole host of unrelated church-state issues.

According to Citizenlink, an email alert sent to Focus on the Family supporters, about 6,000 people attended the rally in Charlotte. During the event, Dobson demanded state-sponsored prayer and Bible reading in public schools and restrictions on abortion. He also predicted the imminent demise of the American family, a common claim among Religious Right leaders.

"The issues before us are so very critical," said Dobson. "I mean, it's now or never. I really believe that the institution of the family is going to survive, or fail, in the next year--and probably this year. It is hanging on the ropes, literally. And so many people of faith, so many good people have sat around--sometimes myself included for 35 years and let everything we care about crude away. And it is lime to say, 'Enough is enough.'"

FOF reported that Dobson then asked the crowd if they wanted to see prayer and Bible reading in schools, posting of the Ten Commandments and an end to "partial-birth" abortion. The crowd responded with "thunderous applause."

According to the FOF account, Dobson undertook the exercise "as it simple illustration of how out-of step such judicial tyrants are with the American people."

"I hope they're listening in Washington." Dobson said, "because that is the sentiment all across this country. Every one of those issues that I just listed is a 70-percenter. Seventy percent or more of the people feel that way. This is where the American people are; so the question is, why isn't that the law of the land?"

Dobson has become increasingly political in recent years. He has been personally endorsing candidates, and his new group has been placing ads attacking lawmakers for failing to support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. In South Dakota, the FOF group has repeatedly attacked Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who is locked in a tight re-election campaign.