This week's round-up of posts about the religious right from the Greater Blogosphere is no doubt woefully incomplete.
However I think I have flagged some important and powerfully written stories; notably posts about the massive covert financing of antiabortion groups fighting the effort to overturn a draconian ban on abortion. Also notable are commentaries and background on the Ted Haggard gay sex scandal.
The Revealer
Jeff Sharlet has an important discussion of the Ted Haggard gay sex scandal. He thinks he got the story wrong in a major article for Harpers:
I hope... journalists now on the job get the story right by not making the mistake I did. The downfall of Ted Haggard is not just another tale of hypocrisy, it's a parable of the paradoxes at the heart of American fundamentalism. I wrote about the role of sex in Ted's theology, but removed it from the final edit of the story (some of it I refashioned into a short essay on Christian Right's men's sex books for Nerve). I made the mistake of viewing Ted's sex and his religion of free market economics as separate spheres. The truth, I suspect, is that they're intimately bound in a worldview of "order," one to which it turns out even Ted cannot conform.
He also interviewed Haggard's accuser, Mike Jones:
I just talked to Jones on the phone. He's not vindictive, nor particularly political; he's voted for Republicans and Democrats. He struggled with his decision, out of compassion for a man in the closet. He was motivated, he said, simply by being a gay man who's been around long enough to know how Ted's politics play out in the ordinary lives of people Jones cares about. That's about as good a motive for outing someone as I've ever heard.
People for the American Way -- Right Wing Watch
Ezra raises questions about the myth of the values voter could Democratic Party leaders and the All Wise Punditocracy be wrong about the perceived need to pander to social issue conservatives?
According to a recent survey by the Center for American Values in Public Life (a project of People For the American Way Foundation), when people are asked what it means for them to "vote their values," only 12 percent cite abortion and gay marriage - the "wedge issues" that drive the modern Religious Right. Even among Evangelicals, the supposed core constituency of leaders like Perkins and James Dobson, that portion is just 19 percent. The survey shows that the honesty, integrity, and responsibility of the candidate are what a plurality of Americans think of when "voting their values."
Melissa Rogers
Melissa Rogers has the story about how the IRS has responded to a complaint filed against one of the leading religious right groups in Ohio that has been very active in Ohio politics for several years and appeared to be openly backing GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell. The apparent use of tax-exempt church resources for partisan political purposes caused other churches to file the complaint.
In a Christianity Today article entitled Meet the Patriot Pastors, Pastor Russell Johnson admits that the ORP has been contacted by the IRS. Back in April of this year, I noted that Johnson and Rev. Rod Parsley had suddenly stopped commenting on whether their organizations had been contacted by the IRS. (Previous to that time, they had been willing to say that their organizations had not been contacted by the IRS.) Johnson maintained that silence in August 2006 and beyond....
Quoting from Christianity today:
The IRS has contacted the ORP about its political involvement. While legally separate, the ORP and Fairfield Christian overlap significantly. Johnson is the founder/chairman CEO of ORP, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. A "Patriot Pastors" banner hangs in the church's lobby. "We're dialoguing with [the IRS] yet; we're still working through that," Johnson tells CT. He can't say for sure whether the matter will be wrapped up by the November elections.
Rogers underscores this news with a very important note:
But this is a reminder that we shouldn't assume that organizations haven't been contacted by the IRS simply because we haven't heard about it in the press.
Indeed, it is IRS policy not to discuss investigations in the press.
Blog from the Capital
In light of the above news about the IRS and the Ohio Restoration Project, I will repeat a blog round up piece from last week. Don Byrd discusses how All Saints Episcopal Church, the liberal Pasadena, California church that is currently in a legal skirmish with the IRS over politicking from the pulpit opposes the religious right's bill in Congress that would remove restrictions on church politicking and allow chruches to make donations to candidates.
Free speech lines must be clearly drawn and respected, but even All Saints seems to recognize that the ban on tax-exempt political endorsement is a good thing, and a necessary protection for the separation of church and state.
Wall of Separation
Jeremy Leaming reports that the U.S Catholic Bishops have directed parishes not to distribute voter guides produced by outside adocacy groups. Such guides are often highly biased, do not necessarily reflect Catholic teaching, and could violate the proscription against electioneering by tax exempt groups.
Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore sent a letter to fellow bishops nationwide, the Religion News Service (RNS) reported, urging them not to distribute voter guides created by outside organizations.
Keeler said so-called voter guides may be "influenced by a partisan agenda" and, therefore, could pose legal problems for parishes that distribute them. The letter was sent under the aegis of the Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities and was unanimously approved by the bishops' Pro-Life Committee, which Keeler heads.
The bishop is exactly right. All nonprofits, religious or secular, are prohibited by federal tax law from endorsing or opposing candidates for public office. While issue advocacy is broadly protected, electioneering is a violation.
Despite this clear rule, Religious Right groups are producing materials that are intended to steer houses of worship into supporting politicians and political parties. Those lobbying outfits have been applying great pressure to churches, especially in states with hotly contested races, to distribute their propaganda.
Coathangers at Dawn
Coathangers at Dawn has a series of reports analyzing the religious right's antiabortion activities in South Dakota. Regarding antiabortion leader Leslee Unruh:
Her other actions like paying teenage girls for their babies, illegal lobbying that has her under IRS investigation and now taking illegal laundered campaign donations via her partner in crime Roger Hunt really bring her reliability into question.
Talk to Action
CynCooper has a detailed investigative report on how the religious right is funneling massive amounts of covert cash into South Dakota in support of the state's abortion ban.
In downtown Rapid City, South Dakota, only a week ago, I saw a banner, ten feet high and not easily raised, flying over the entranceway to a church. It called upon people to support a near total ban on abortion in the state, a measure that is on the Tuesday ballot. But the reality of the religious right campaign against women's rights in the state became fully apparent with the release of campaign finance reports this week by the South Dakota Secretary of State. I included religious right funding in a Special Report on Women's eNews. Details are below, as well.
But South Dakota media have avoided the issue, just as they have tip-toed over a series of infuriating lies and deceptions of the anti-abortion campaign. Late this week, the media finally awakened to a disturbing scandal of vast sums of covert anti-abortion campaign funding funneled through a shell corporation set up by Republican State Rep. Roger W. Hunt, the sponsor of the anti-abortion legislation.... It may be a case of media attention that is too little, too late.
The religious right funding and the slick but untruthful advertisements of the anti-abortion campaign, known as Yes for Life tell an even bigger story.
They show how much the right wing has invested in overturning women's reproductive freedom and that South Dakota is only the starting point. The vast outpouring of religious right and church funds, combined with campaign-lie advertising in the Willie Horton and Swift Boat mold, is the future we will experience if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
South Dakota, and the country, should wake up.
They would, too, if it were not for a state media that is either in league with the religious right or so compliant as to be just plain wimpy. It is not at all clear that voters will have accurate information in their hands before the election..
To step back for a moment, the ballot measure is Referred Law 6. If passed, it would place a total ban on all abortions in all circumstances except to save imminent death of the pregnant woman. The law also gives a right to life to a pre-zygote, defining the beginning of life as a sperm and egg union, and granting it constitutional rights under state law.... Those opposing the ban, that is, calling for a vote of "NO on 6," are trying hard to education the public -- not easy given the willing collaborations or capitulation of the media in the opponents' deceptive techniques. The SD Campaign for Healthy Families is the lead group opposing the ban.
Steven Martin reflects on his family's encounter with giant gory deptictions of abortion mounted on trucks when they went to visit the Liberty Bell.
I do not like abortion any more than anyone else; but I realize it is too complex and loaded an issue to be legislated by men in expensive suits making speeches.... I have lived through the experience of seeing a friend end a pregnancy after five months due to a genetic defect that led to her having a baby with no brain, and then live through the experience a second time - two years to the day later. I have also seen her turned away from a support group for women with miscarriages because she "had an abortion." We all have such stories to tell.
Tanya Erzen disucusses the Ted Haggard scandal in light of the history of Christian right gay sex scandals:
Many conservative Christians conceive of homosexuality as a choice or a lifestyle. Separating behavior from identity enables conservative Christians to love the sinner and hate the sin, even if at bottom their fears and antipathy toward gay people remain. This distinction enables Haggard to claim "I've never had a gay relationship."
The Haggard scandal exemplifies how the Christian Right promotes anti-gay politics in the guise of love and compassion. Haggard kept his sexual life secret while he railed against gay rights from the pulpit and in the political arena. Will conservative Christians blame Haggard's fall on the liberal media or gay activists as they blame the demise of marriage on a so-called "homosexual menace"? Perhaps conservative Christians inclined to vote for anti-gay marriage amendments will reevaluate their politics when they go to the polls next Tuesday.
In addition to Colorado, Tennessee has a Defense of Marriage Act on the ballot next Tuesday. Six other states including Idaho, Arizona, Wisconsin, Virginia, South Carolina, and South Dakota have ballot initiatives that would deny domestic partnerships, civil unions, and same-sex marriage.
Silver decribes the bellwether race for Kansas Attorney General: attorney general's race in Kansas.
The iconic red-state and home of the wildest of the Religious Right may well provide moderates and progressives with a roadmap for defeating the radical right. At issue is the fate of incumbent Republican Phill Kline -- a longtime darling of the far right. Ironically, Kline's campaign may help give moderates and progressives the key to defeating the Religious Right.
And I discuss the Interfaith Alliance's list of the top ten most egregious examples of abuses by pols and religious leaders this year.
The list includes Democrats who in a misguided, in my view, effort to ape Republican excesses in this area, are contributing to the the debasement of basic ideas of separation of church and state and respect for religious pluralism. I would greatly prefer polititians who stand for respect for religious difference among citizens, instead of pandering to the values of religious supremacism.
During the presidential campaign of 1960, John F. Kennedy took the question of his Catholicism to a group of protestant ministers, many of whom were concerned about possible Vatican influence. Kennedy not only addressed that, but the wider question of religion and public life. He spoke of core "values" we rarely hear from political leaders these days: Kennedy valued:
"an America where the separation of church and state is absolute - where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act ... For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew - or a Quaker - or a Unitarian - or a Baptist ... Today I may be the victim - but tomorrow it may be you - until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril."