Texas Governor Rick Perry’s wife Anita Perry suggested today that her husband is being attacked for his faith during a “rough month.”
“We have been brutalized and beaten up and chewed up in the press to where I need this today,” Anita Perry said at North Greenville University in South Carolina. “We are being brutalized by our opponents, and our own party. So much of that is, I think they look at him, because of his faith. He is the only true conservative–well, there are some true conservatives. And they’re there for good reasons. And they may feel like God called them too. But I truly feel like we are here for that purpose.”
Anita Perry suggested that her husband’s difficulties were a “test.” “Last week, someone came up to Rick and gave him the Scripture. He said Rick, I want to tell you God is testing you,” she said.
She said Perry relied on prayer when deciding whether or not to enter the GOP race. “He felt like he needed to see that burning bush,” she said. “I said he may not see that burning bush but other people are seeing it for you.”
Anita Perry also spoke about her trips to church with her grandfather. “My grandfather was the deacon in a Christian church and he made sure I went to Sunday school every Sunday because nothing made him prouder than for me to hear him in his sermon on Sunday,” she said.
Texas pastor Robert Jeffress endorsed Perry last week at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit in Washington last week. After introducing Perry, he later told reporters he believed Mormonism was a cult, which many reporters saw as the main story out of the summit. Jeffress discussed his views that Christians should not vote for a Mormon candidate during the 2008 election.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, suggested that Perry should disavow Jeffress, but Perry declined, the Associated Press reported. The video of Anita Perry’s speech is available below from MSNBC:
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