Religious Right, Frustrated Despite Having Friends in High Office, Rethinks Strategy

WASHINGTON -- With such fellow believers as President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft in office, religious conservatives have never had more friends in high places.

But a growing sense of frustration is enveloping the leadership of the political movement that began nearly 25 years ago when the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority burst onto the national scene. A generation later, most Americans don't stand with the Christian Right. Its big agenda items have fizzled.

And as the impact of last month's sweeping Supreme Court ruling on gay rights sinks in, the movement is at a soul-searching crossroads.

"Obviously, in some ways Christians are losing the culture war, certainly on this issue (gay rights)," said the Rev. D. James Kennedy, head of Coral Ridge Ministries in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and a religious broadcaster with a national following. "The time has come for us to re-examine the situation we're in."

Some see opportunity in a new battle arising from the June ruling -- gay marriage. Handled correctly, strategists say, it could re-energize religious conservatives, putting them in a posture of defending heterosexual marriage instead of attacking the rights of gays.

There appears to be a growing consensus that the movement must find a way out of its current predicament: being dissatisfied with the status quo, but reluctant to criticize it because allies control the White House and Congress.

"They're at a moment where they have to reinvigorate themselves or reinvent themselves or they'll just slowly fade away," said John Green, a professor at the University of Akron and co-editor of a new book, "The Christian Right in American Politics."

Most social movements do better rallying against enemies than helping allies govern, Green said. Many Christian Right organizations thrived when Bill Clinton was in the White House.

With gay rights marching on, abortion an established right, no return to teacher-led school prayer in sight and public vouchers for private schools a messy proposition at best, the Christian Right has learned over time that it's easier to fulminate than to legislate. Even when laws are passed, the courts can and do overturn them.

Some see history repeating itself, as when President Reagan spoke the language of religious conservatives but wasn't able or willing to deliver on key policy goals.

A handful of national leaders, such as outgoing Family Research Council President Ken Connor, advocate a more demanding tone, even if it means criticizing Bush for not doing enough.

That appears unlikely, however, because Bush remains immensely popular among the white evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics that make up the movement. It's a constituency that makes up as much as 18 percent of the entire electorate, according to surveys, but it has no realistic place to go outside the GOP.

(In a dozen Gallup surveys over the last five years, the share of Americans identifying themselves as "born-again" or "evangelical" ranged between 41 and 49 percent. That grouping is much larger than the Christian Right because it includes blacks, who vote strongly Democratic, as well as some Catholics, mainline Protestants and non-voters who may identify with those spiritual terms.)

Connor, who leaves the Family Research Council Monday for unspecified "professional and personal reasons," says fellow leaders of the Christian Right have been used, accepting rhetoric instead of results and confusing access with influence.

"They go to an East Room ceremony or a Rose Garden signing or to the White House Christmas party and say, `Look at all the influence I have,"' he said. "In reality, they've been bought off cheap."

Paul Weyrich -- head of the Washington-based Free Congress Foundation, co-founder of the Moral Majority and a man some call the father of the Christian Right -- shares some of Connor's frustration, without criticizing Bush.

"The president is a religious conservative. The senate majority leader is a religious conservative. The speaker of the house and the house majority leader and the majority whip are all religious conservatives," Weyrich said. "Yet we make only marginal, incremental progress. We really have to rethink our strategy."

Weyrich recently received a "Patriot's Award" for his service to the cause. The scene -- an annual summer gathering in suburban Washington sponsored by more than 20 conservative organizations -- was festive, with red, white and blue banners and balloons. Activists carried paper plates piled with fried chicken, pork sandwiches and baked beans under a large banner saying "Government is not God."

Interviews revealed that leaders of the Christian Right are downright pessimistic, even at a time when some Democrats accuse Bush of pushing a religious conservative agenda and foreign critics say the administration imposes a moralistic vision on the world.

"In politics and public policy, we're losing ground," said Walt Barbee, a veteran political activist in Virginia, the state where the Christian Right has arguably been most successful. "I don't see how anyone can say otherwise in light of the prima facie evidence of this recent Supreme Court decision."

Justice Antonin Scalia, in his blistering dissent, said the court's majority had decreed "the end of all morals legislation" and made gay marriage the logical next step. Meantime, an appeals court in Canada ruled in June that a gay marriage ban was unconstitutional. Pending court decisions in Massachusetts and New Jersey could sanction gay marriage in this country as well.

"I don't think the bomb has gone off yet. It will go off and go off soon. It's the marriage bomb," said Matt Daniels, president of the Alliance for Marriage, a Washington-based group promoting a constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely a union between a man and a woman.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has endorsed the effort, saying "Western values" and the "sacrament" of marriage must be protected.

In Michigan, legislators are working to rewrite the state constitution in a similar manner. Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, predicts gay marriage will become the ultimate wedge issue, with every 2004 candidate forced to answer where he or she stands.

"Some folks on the right see the marriage issue as the winning move for them," said Michael Adams, a spokesman for Lambda Legal, a New York City organization fighting for gay rights nationally. "I think they're going to see that they're mistaken, just as they thought gay adoption was the issue for them and child custody for gays and lesbians was the issue for them. They're finding that society is moving toward more equality and they're being left behind.

"But we don't expect the Christian Right to go away. They certainly have shown with their virulent reaction the last couple of weeks that they're not going away."

"The president is a religious conservative.

--------------------

To the extent he is anything, I consider him a Christian Marxist paralleling the Berrigans, the Maryknolls, and others.


Chrysler Corporation was to add a new car to it's line to honor Bill Clinton. The Dodge Drafter was to begin production in Canada this year, but the car had to be pulled out of production when initial tests showed that the little white lines on the road kept disappearing all the time.
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Newhouse News is not a particular friend of Christians, conservatives, or Republicans. This article is meant to be discouraging and divisive.

I feel frustrated too. But electing Bush had nothing to do with the Supreme Court Decision, which was decided by Justices appointed by his predecessors. The ONLY way we can improve the justice system in this country is to elect a president and enough senators to start appointing decent judges. Thousands of rotten judges were appointed by clinton, and a fair number were pushed through even under Republicans, since the Democrats in the past often controlled the senate.

The ONLY way forward at the moment is to elect more solid senators in 2004, because the Democrats will probably block all decent appointments until then.

To do what you are commending would require a third party. The third party would need to offer a complete slate of candidates. In order to have done that in 2004, organizing would have needed to begin in 2000. It is now too late. Perhaps something can be done by 2008.

The Religious Right should be overjoyed to have themselves and their movement declared defeated, over and done with. This voting block has been villified for decades, by the left, and by the mainstream media. Villified, made fun of, blamed.

Without the libelous label attached, without being an easy target, the religious right can gain real strength and real influence. Just a few weeks ago, a feminist organization released a poll that shocked them:

The number of pro-life Americans is steadily growing, and significantly.

While some alarmists moan marriage is threatened, that gays are "taking over", with barnyard sex soon to follow, cooler heads would argue it just ain't so, can't be so with the political winds tacking so surely to the right. And we know they are because the left is so frantic, so desperate.

Eight years with George Bush's steady hand at the helm, and the cultural decline will have reversed itself. I'm not playing pollyanna, I believe what I say.

President Bush had nothing to do with these rulings. These are not people he appointed. If you check out this nominees, you will see that his choices would never have backed this crap. But you don't want to see the truth, do you? You are divisive and you are wrong.

With gay rights marching on, abortion an established right, no return to teacher-led school prayer in sight and public vouchers for private schools a messy proposition at best, the Christian Right has learned over time that it's easier to fulminate than to legislate.

Try telling that to the Democrats who freak out at every judicial confirmation.

Newhouse News is not a particular friend of Christians, conservatives, or Republicans.

Exactly.

Why else would this guy write this article at the exact same time as the NAACP Convention in Florida, which was skipped by two of the top Democratic contenders?

It seems to me that the NAACP is losing more influence on the Democratic party than the conservatives are losing in the GOP.

Eight years with George Bush's steady hand at the helm, and the cultural decline will have reversed itself. I'm not playing pollyanna, I believe what I say.

Yeah, keep believing that. Clinton will be in prison next week also...........

Eight years will just be the start. Our current cultural decline has a forty year head start. Nationally speaking we are past the point of no return.

George Bush may slow it down if he tries and he's not.

It's called a spiritual revival, it's a religious thing not a political thing.

Our country has been though several cultural declines. Cultural renewal happened in the 1880's.

It can happen again, but it won't be because pf politics.

verity, just for a minute, try to see things from the left's perspective. Think how much they've lost since 2000. They've lost their politcal power in Washington, their media control of print, television, radio, and the internet, not to mention the heady pleasure and prestige lost by their celebrities in New York and Hollywood.

Perhaps most galling to the left, they've had to defend their patriotism, love of country, and even the simple pleasure of flying, or wearing, the American flag. Through no fault of the right, the left is uncomfortable displaying their patriotism, as if it would identify them with Commander in Chief Bush.

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead...."

Ok, ok, I got carried away for a second

And anyway, I don't need melodramatic rhyme to make my case, that of all the things the left has lost, and is desperate to regain, cultural influence is the most important.

The fundamental problem that faced, and still faces, the religious right is that they permitted their positions to be framed by their enemies as being against people and issues. And they not only permitted this framing, many of them reveled in it. This was a grave error. A movement has to be seen as being for issues to attract popular support. Ask most people in this country what the religious right stands for and you will get...silence. Ask them what they are against and it will be: against abortion, against minorities, against women's rights, against immigrants, against poor children, against sex unless with your married spouse and in the missionary position only.

And since most people are for at least one of those items, and will be against anyone who is against what they are for -- well golly, gee, I wonder why the religous right is unpopular.

The thing is, the majority of people are for the positions of the religious right -- they're just against a false perspective created by the Leftist media about what the religious right stands for.

Unless Bush places one or more Scalia types on the SC in time for some significant rulings on abortion/marriage issues, I expect we'll see even more of the Religious Right sit out the next election. And even more will stay home if the economy doesn't improve dramatically.

They've voted Republican for a long time with little to show for it. And it seems GOP dominance is giving us bigger government than ever and a return to deficit spending.

These things aren't what the Religious Right has been voting for. The GOP may think they have nowhere to go. But come election day, these voters might just agree with the GOP and decide they really do have nowhere to go. Just like 3 million did in 2000 when they stayed home.

"Christians are losing the culture war"

The reason is - they won't get off their blessed assurance and get out in the trenches and do some of the grunt work. Prayer is wonderful and it does wonderful things. But faith is confirmed by your works.

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