[Dialogue] Just how influential is the Religious Right? by David Batstone

[Sunny Walker]

See article below. If we ("those who care") were half as smart (as the Jesuits once were, as I recall), we'd be doing the same thing -- never too late, right? or is that center...to left...??? I know a number of Republicans who aren't happy with SOME of this maneuvering by their party and the religious right, AND I would hate to see the world ruled by yet another two-story universe (here in Colorado, the GUY in the Big House  and all that goes along with that mythology is still primary with the rural voters who are still the majority).

Sunny, in Denver where the rain now only threatens and the sun is back out.

      Just how influential is the Religious Right?
      by David Batstone 

      How has the Religious Right become a powerful sector of the Republican Party, holding veto power over most any GOP maneuver? 


      The mainstream media typically treat the rise of religious conservatives with derision, commonly depicting them as fanatics out of touch with modern American life. These dismissals do not enable them to see the organic relationship that was developing between the legions of Religious Right constituents and the political establishment. 


      The Religious Right carefully has nurtured grassroots organizations with a decidedly outsider political mentality. The efforts of groups such as Christian Voice, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, the Freedom Council, American Coalition for Traditional Values, and the Christian Coalition were linked masterfully to make a strong impact on local political issues. During this period of rapid growth, the movement concentrated on political battles involving its key moral concerns, above all abortion, gay rights, school prayer, teaching creationism in public schools, and support for a regressive tax structure. Any taxing of the rich to redistribute wealth to the poor is equated with socialism. In the process, the movement gleaned valuable insight about how the political structure worked, and how to work it from Washington insiders like Orrin Hatch and Jesse Helms. 


      Early on, Republican centrists did not like the notion of power sharing with the extreme Right. The image of Jerry Falwell vilifying his political adversaries in colorful biblical language might play to a core audience, but it scared Republican operatives who did not want to alienate moderate voters. 


      But a new generation of Religious Right leaders - exemplified by Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition and the senior director of Bush's re-election campaign in the Southeast - learned how to make compromises and work in coalitions. The movement also became savvier about how to leverage the power of its voting bloc in order to gain a seat at those tables where important policy decisions are made. 


      That dynamic unmistakably was at play at the 1998 Values Summit, a gathering of the core of the Religious Right organizations and sympathizers within the Republican Party, including Tom DeLay. Before the summit, James Dobson of Focus on the Family openly had expressed his disenchantment with the Republican Party. "He argued it may be time for religious conservatives to leave the Party because they aren't paying attention to our core moral issues," reports Napp Nazworth, a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida who follows the movement intimately. The summit took up that problem, focusing on the lack of coordination between the outside pro-life/pro-family coalitions and similar-minded members of Congress. 


      DeLay and his colleagues in the Republican Study Committee (RSC) - which, according to its Web site, "is a group of over 85 House Republicans organized for the purpose of advancing a conservative social and economic agenda in the House of Representatives" - were not about to permit an exodus of religious conservatives. Shortly after the summit, DeLay nominated then freshman Representative Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania to spearhead a new inside/outside coalition, which would come to be known as the Values Action Team (VAT). The VAT's primary goal is to link Washington insiders with grassroots outsiders and coordinate their efforts on legislative reform. In practice, the VAT holds weekly luncheons in Washington, D.C., that offer Focus on the Family and the 30 or so other Religious Right member organizations a direct lobbying line to the U.S. Congress. In order to join the VAT, a member of Congress must pledge to be "strongly pro-life" and "must assign one legislative staff member to attend weekly." 


      The gatherings of the VAT, the Republican Study Committee, and other affiliated meetings, such as the Free Congress Foundation's bi-weekly breakfast, are creating a potent synergy in Washington. "They influence Congress because they represent a united front," says Nazworth, who has participated in these gatherings. "That's the way things work in Congress; you need to have independent enclaves of power," he explains. 


      Of course, the meetings only take place because the Religious Right movement is busy gathering constituents in local churches who mail their congresspersons, and who support the 'right' candidates to get elected. Once those candidates get elected, then the movement has more friends in Congress. For the Religious Right, the insider/outsider organization is turning into a virtuous circle of influence. 


      This essay is excerpted from "The Right Stuff," which appears in the July issue of Sojourners magazine.