Who is Ed Silvoso ? Let's start here, with some quotes from one of his more recent books:

"The discipling of nations is our primary task on Earth...  To disciple someone means to turn that person into a follower of the teachings you espouse... The Romans "discipled" nations by conquering and imposing on them Pax Romana. Lenin and his followers "discipled" Russia and the Soviet Union by molding in a regimented and all-encompassing way the lives of millions with Communist philosophy. Mao did the same in China, the largest nation on earth. Militant Muslims actively take over nations and disciple them a la Ayatollah Khomeini; and even though they do not use the term "disciple", they are making entire populations into followers -disciples- of Mohammad." -- page 42, Transformation - Change The Marketplace And You Change The World by Ed Silvoso (2007, Gospel Light books)

"As soon as the now ex-gay man came up from the waters [baptism], he was struck by the power of God, evicting the demonic forces that had controlled him for so long and rewiring his psyche correctly to enable him to feel like a man again." - Transformation, page 167

In their writings and rallies, they encourage their followers to burn art, objects and scripture associated with all competing religious and philosophical belief systems. They have helped craft a bill that would legislatively annihilate an entire segment of humanity. They are not an Afghanistan-based Islamic insurgency or a 1930s-era German political movement. They are native to American Christianity, and they are moving to take entire U.S. cities.

[video, below: disturbed Vallejo residents testify against local Democratic Party endorsement of candidate for city council Anthony Summers. See 38:20 for Mark Garman speech]

On September 18, 2013, an explosive story in the Vallejo Independent Bulletin, "Get Straight Or Just Die", drew attention to Democratic Party-endorsed candidate for Vallejo City Council pastor Andy Summers and his ties to the openly dominionist New Apostolic Reformation leader Ed Silvoso -- who proposes that evangelical Christians should become engaged in politics in order to "disciple" nations in the manner that Lenin and his revolutionary Bolsheviks took over Russia and the Islamic followers of Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran.

As the Vallejo Independent Bulletin story documented, Summers has appeared in Silvoso's promotional videos - which have touted candidate Summers as an active participation in Silvoso's "Transformation Vallejo".

Many Americans assume that, as a political movement, the religious right is declining or moribund. But evangelist Ed Silvoso's maximally politicized charismatic Christianity is active internationally - it is tied to an effort in the African nation of Uganda to mandate the death penalty for "repeat" homosexuality - and Silvoso has ongoing "transformation" efforts in the U.S. as well, - such as in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Vallejo, CA.

In July 2009, while a battle raged in Vallejo's schools concerning religiously-motivated bullying of a lesbian high school student, Silvoso and his movement leaders held a waterfront rally in Vallejo, which featured an appearance from apostle and prophet Cindy Jacobs - who would later become notorious due to her claim that flocks of blackbirds dropped dead from the sky, victims of God's wrath, after President Barack Obama's decided to rescind the Clinton-era "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" rule concerning gays in the military.

Endorsing the event was Vallejo city Mayor Osby Davis, who in an event brochure was quoted stating, ""If we do our part, God will heal our city".

The same year,  mayor Davis told the New York Times, "The sins that keep you out of heaven are not the just those sins of being gay, those are sins of lying, murdering, unforgiving, all kinds of sins"; also in 2009, Davis appeared onstage with Ed Silvoso at another Vallejo prayer rally, at which the Vallejo mayor gave a ringing endorsement of Silvoso's efforts to "transform" the city, stating, "I really believe in the message."

Now, as Vallejo Independent Bulletin editor Marc Garman suggested me in a September interview, the political bid of Vallejo City Council candidate pastor Anthony Summers - who is openly participating in Silvoso's movement - could help lock in control of Vallejo city government for years.

And Judging by testimony from concerned Vallejo City residents, who have testified to pastor Anthony Summers' alleged efforts in 2009 to undermine an anti-bullying program in Vallejo's public schools, such an outcome could also lock in or exacerbate the bullying of LGBT teens :  

On Saturday, October 19, 2013, at a contentious, emotionally charged local Democratic Party meeting in Martinez, CA, concerning controversial Democratic Party-endorsed candidate for Vallejo City Council pastor Anthony Summers, a 15-year veteran Vallejo public school teacher recalled before her audience the intense battle over bullying in Vallejo schools back in 2009,

"I was really very involved in the anti-bulling stuff - it was vicious. It was vitriolic. It was horrible. I sat across the table from people who wanted me dead. I mean, really - who believed I would burn in hell. OK ? And said so, to my face. And these were the people the school district brought to the program, to try to craft an anti-bullying program - that we were required to do because we lost a lawsuit, because a student was bullied, not by other students but by faculty and staff at high school... It's just unreal, the kind of hatred we face. Vallejo is not ready for an elected official who does not believe we need to fight this fight... This issue is current right now the rights of gay and lesbian people. We need people who are elected in our city who will take that fight on."

One after another, they testified on how pastor Anthony Summers, who is an active participant in a movement that has worked to crush LGBT rights in the Africa nation of Uganda, had worked to undermine creation of an anti-bullying program in Vallejo's public schools.

One woman active in local Democratic Party politics stated, "I was stunned when I learned of this endorsement. Basic bedrock values of Democrats are civil rights for everybody. Equal justice for everyone." One man explained,

"I've been talking with Anthony Summers for years. We actually went head-to-head with him in front of the Vallejo School Board when he was actively working to dismantle an anti-bullying proposal." As the man testified, in 2009 Democratic Party-endorsed candidate Anthony Summers had declared homosexuality to be a "very public sin". He went on,

"At that time, in 2009, there was a girl, Rochelle Hamilton, in our school, that was contemplating suicide. That contemplation of suicide is what led to an ALCU-mandated implementation of an anti-bullying campaign in Vallejo and he actively worked against that and - not only himself but he was working with two other groups from Sacramento, Capital Resource Institute and the Pacific Justice Institute - which are both very violent, anti-gay lobbying groups."

In a May 20th, 2010 Huffington Post statement, Rochelle Hamilton described the abusive climate in the Vallejo high school she had attended:

"Every day, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people face discrimination, harassment and even violence because of who they are. In my case, I was called "ungodly," and told I was "going to hell" for my "sin." I was asked, "What are you, a man or a woman?" And I regularly had to hear that it's "not right to be this way."

What may surprise you is who my harassers were. All those comments came from teachers and staff at my old high school in Vallejo.

All I wanted was to be able to go to school and be myself. I couldn't do that when adults were judging me and telling me that something was wrong with me. I was even required to join a counseling group that discouraged students from being LGBT -- like that's even possible. How was I supposed to learn like that?"

The bullying of Hamilton led to an ACLU-backed lawsuit which led in turn to a settlement requiring the creation of an anti-bullying program in Hamilton's former school - a campaign which, speakers at the contentious meeting testified, Democratic Party-endorsed candidate Anthony Summers had actively worked to undermine.

Ed Silvoso's "Transformation Vallejo" project is one of many around the United States and the globe. One of Silvoso's promotional videos, "Transformation in Uganda", presents, as Uganda members of Silvoso's effort, pastors who are in the vanguard of the evangelical crusade against gay rights in Uganda. One of the members of Silvoso's Uganda "transformation" team, Julius Oyet, even claims to have helped conceive the potentially genocidal anti-LGBT so-called "kill the gays" bill that has loomed before Uganda's parliament since 2009. The involvement of Silvoso's movement in inciting anti-LGBT hatred in Uganda is subject of the 2013 documentary God Loves Uganda

On the U.S. domestic front, one of Ed Silvoso's recent transformation efforts was an attempt to win the governorship of Hawaii:  

At a July 2008 prayer rally, Hawaii Lt. Governor James "Duke" Aiona testified to his active participation the Ed Silvoso-initiated effort called "Transformation Hawaii". Then, in November 2009, at a conference center near Honolulu, Hawaii, the future 2010 election Republican-elect Hawaii gubernatorial candidate James "Duke" Aiona, then serving as Hawaii's Lt. Governor, told his audience, "We're one body of Christ, we're one church, we're all here to disciple the nations, here in Hawaii and everywhere else - and I want you all to know that."

Up onstage at the November 2009 conference, Ed Silvoso and his fellow International Transformation Network members - leaders in the dominionist charismatic Christian movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation - then blessed and anointed Aiona, in a ceremony very similar to the public anointings of Sarah Palin and, more recently, Ted Cruz.

Later at the conference, during a feverish ceremony, with 2010 Hawaii Republican candidate for United States Senate Cam Cavasso among the onlookers, amidst a crescendo rising of ambient band music, NAR apostle and evangelist Pat Francis shouted out, her voice cracking with emotion,

"...We break generational curses, we break generational curses, we break generational curses, and we plead the blood of Jesus over every altar of demon, over every altar of ancestral spirit, over every altar of false religion, and in Jesus name we declare that you are the King of Hawaii, you are the Lord of Hawaii. We dispossess the gods of Hawaii, and we lift up the one and true God, Jesus Christ.  

And we are charged, standing guard, and we put our foot on Hawaii. And you said every place we put our foot, we will rule.  So we are the Kingdom, the Kingdom is here.  "

In a post-election interview, gubernatorial candidate Aiona attributed his loss in the election in part to "Transformation Hawaii", a local affiliate of Ed Silvoso's International Transformation Network  - a connection that my research and journalism had exhaustively documented in the lead up to the election.

But what might have been in Hawaii - and what may come to pass in Vallejo -  was starkly evident during a pro-civil unions rally held in August 2010 at the Hawaii state capital building. As documented by Hawaii resident and activist Carroll Cox, pro-LGBT rights demonstrators were, in effect, treated as second-class citizens, while members of Ed Silvoso's Transformation Hawaii effort were welcomed into the capital building and even the office of then-Hawaii governor Linda Lingle, who would proceed to veto the HB444 civil union bill and, the next day, go on Hawaii radio to compare same-sex marriage to incest. As Cox asked, about the event,

"Why is it that the people who came to the Capitol building in support of the gay community and HB444 were required to obtain a Special Use Permit and proof of liability insurance in order to participate in a rally, but the pastors, church members, and those rallying against the civil rights legislation were not similarly required to obtain the necessary permits? And, why is it that certain people were invited to a special prayer meeting inside the Governor's office, but others were excluded?"

related stories

Vallejo City Council Race : Democrat-Endorsed Pastor Tied To Anti-Union, Anti-LGBT Movement (Talk2action.org, Bruce Wilson, 10/31/2013)

Political Notebook: Vallejo pastor, LGBT residents clash over city council race (Bay Area Reporter, Matthew S. Bajko, 10/31/2013)

Get Straight Or Just Die (Vallejo Independent Bulletin, Marc Garman, 09/19/2013)

Anthony Summers Responds (Vallejo Independent Bulletin, Marc Garman and Anthony Summers, 09/23/2013)

October 19, 2013 Solano County Democrats meeting concerning the endorsement of the candidacy of pastor Anthony Summers (video, ~1 hour)