MARCUS YAM The Roanoke Times

About 75 people gather at the Total Action Against Poverty headquarters Tuesday in downtown Roanoke.

MARCUS YAM The Roanoke Times

Former Virginia Gov. Linwood Holton, a Republican, greets Barack Obama supporters Tuesday at the Total Action Against Poverty headquarters in Roanoke.

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PULASKI -- The presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama staged a series of Democratic rallies Tuesday across Southwest Virginia with separate teams led by a professor of religion and former Virginia Republican Gov. Linwood Holton.

Coming on the heels of a visit by Obama to Russell County and the coalfields last week, it's another sign of the major effort being made by the Illinois senator and state Democrats to win Virginia's electoral votes for the first time since 1964. Another campaign tour by an Obama proxy today will target rural issues.

In Pulaski, the "Faith, Family & Values" tour drew two dozen Democratic supporters to the Masonic Lodge, where Shaun Casey, a professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., said Obama continues to face the challenge of overcoming false rumors he's a Muslim.

Casey said his mother, who lives in Kentucky, still gets e-mails that allege Obama is a Muslim who will reveal his true religion only when he wins the White House. "That is still an active story line" in Southwest Virginia, Casey said.

The rumor that Obama is a Muslim was discussed privately among some of the Democratic volunteers before the rally started. Casey advised them that if friends and neighbors ask about the rumor, or worry that Obama isn't Christian, to assure them "that it is not true."

Religion-oriented political events were also held in Lynchburg and Harrisonburg. On Monday, the tour had visited Bristol, Marion and Wytheville.

Another concern of some Obama supporters is that Christians, particularly conservative evangelicals, will be turned off by his stand in favor of abortion rights. Casey said that the Democratic platform -- essentially the party's mission statement drafted at the August convention in Denver -- contains a "commitment to reducing abortions" by bettering the nation's economy so that expectant mothers of modest means will feel more confident about the financial challenges of delivering their babies.

That solution doesn't satisfy the likes of Matt Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law in Lynchburg and founder of Liberty Counsel, a law firm specializing in church-state issues: "I think what's of concern to evangelical voters are Obama's incontrovertible views on life and values that just don't connect with them."

Staver cited Obama's response to a question from the Rev. Rick Warren in a nationally televised interview in August about when life begins -- that it's "above my pay grade." Staver said, "For the president to say that when life begins for a baby is above his pay grade is incomprehensible."

Republicans plan to start rallying religious voters in Southwest Virginia during the next few days with a house-to-house canvass called "Americans of Faith," said Judi Lynch, a Montgomery County resident who is a member of the party's state central committee. "The McCain-Palin ticket is strong on true conservative Christian values," she said.

In Roanoke, meanwhile, Holton appeared before a cheering crowd of about 75 people gathered in a meeting room at Total Action Against Poverty, a nonprofit group based in downtown. The lifelong Republican, who was governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974, said, "I guess I ought to be ashamed" to support the Democratic presidential nominee. "But I'm not."

He criticized the Bush administration and the Republican majority in Congress that existed until 2006. "They gave me an experience that made me decide we've got to throw the rascals out and do something else."

Holton, whose daughter, Anne Holton, is married to Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, praised Obama's education at Columbia University and Harvard Law School: "He's got a brain and he knows how to use it."

The loudest applause and a standing ovation for Holton came at the conclusion of his 15-minute speech, when he donned a white cap that proclaimed "Obama" in blue letters. Immediately afterward, on the sidewalk outside, Obama backers distributed bumper stickers.