On the eve of the post-Taliban elections in Afghanistan,
commentators warned of the threat that tribal leaders would try to control the electorate.
[E]lders of the Terezai tribe announced on Khost's radio station that all tribe members must vote for Hamid Karzai; tribal families who voted against Mr. Karzai would have their houses burned down.
Deference to tribe is a common attitude all across southern Afghanistan, where the largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, live. Individuals such as Sayid Amir, an astrologer waiting for loaves of bread at a bakery in Qalat, know that the new Afghan Constitution allows them full personal rights. But he still says he must defer to his tribal elders with his vote.
"It depends on our tribal leaders," he says. "Yes, I know it is my right to choose whom I want. But in my region, the tribal leaders will all get together and choose whom they will vote for, and then everyone will vote for that person."
Election observers and others worked to counter this threat by voter education efforts. One commentator described this threat as "very undemocratic behavior."
In the United States today, we are witnessing the same type of "very undemocratic behavior." The most overt display came from Reverend Chan Chandler in North Carolina. In
Southlib's wonderful diary Sunday, parishioners described the reverend's political overreaching:
"Chandler went off the deep end. He alienated members who did not share his political views, telling those who were planning to vote for Kerry or any Democrat that they would go to hell.. . .
Then again on 1 May 2005, Chandler preached two political messages (one at morning worship, the other at night) and called a deacon's meeting for Monday night . . .
Monday night was a lynching," said Lewis Inman. "He [Chandler] had forty people with him, twelve adults and the rest teenagers, and said they were going to vote us eleven out. In other words, if you had voted for John Kerry for President, you were going to be voted out of the church. . . ."
Young Reverend Chandler's actions may have been the most obvious example of the fundamentalist threat to democracy, but they are only a symptom of a much larger problem.
In an interview published in the Washington Post Sunday, Baptist minister Rick Scarborough, a close ally of Tom DeLay and the founder of the Patriot Pastor Network, explained how the aggressive fundamentalists control the political decisions of their flock:
their real power rests in their unique access to millions of voters "who happen to go to church," as Scarborough puts it. "It's straight to the heart of people from men and women they trust," he said.
In fact, much rhetoric of the fundamentalist right demonstrates their proud claims of control over the votes of their members. The right's thinly-veiled threats to Senate Majority leader Bill Frist make clear that, if he fails to deliver on the fillibuster, they will not deliver the votes of their flock in the 2008 presidential primary:
During a panel entitled "Judicial Assault On Our Judeo-Christian Heritage," Don Feder of Vision America . . . . promised that whatever prominent Republican was willing to take the lead on the issue of judicial reform and impeachment will probably "have the Republican [presidential] nomination in 2008."
What does that mean? It means that, even among the conservative Christian candidates who all share the congregation's values, religious leaders will be able to direct the choice of their faithful to the particular candidate who does their bidding. Scary stuff.
Finally, some personal evidence of the fundamentalist threat to democracy. One of my clients is Yale-educated attorney who is a member of a small fundamentalist Christian church. I consider him a friend, and on rare occasions we talk about religion or politics. A few days after the election, I told him one thing that was very alarming for me was that conservative ministers seemed to be dictating the political decisions of their congregation. My fundamentalist friend responded in a slow, deliberate monotone:
"well it's like soldiers in a war who really shouldn't think for themselves but should just follow orders."
Are the fundamentalist ministers telling their flock they have to surrender their independent political judgment because some kind of holy war has begun? Very very scary stuff. Almost too scary to think about.
For all their claims of supporting traditional values, this stuff would terrify the framers, and would undermine the integrity of any democracy. It was undemocratic for the Pashtuns, and it is equally undemocratic for the patriot pastors. And, since democratic principles are at the core of the shared values of this nation, what the fundamentalists leaders are doing is deeply, profoundly Un-American.
Maybe God or the ghosts of the framers have divinely intervened and have given us the inartful Reverend Chandler to reveal to us the lengths to which the "patriot pastors" will go to control our democracy.
Tell your friends and family to tell their ministers that they want to make their own political decisions. Tell them that it is undemocratic for fundamentalist ministers, for "patriot pastors" to exploit the trust of their congregations by going "straight to the heart of the people" to get votes for the candidate of their choice. Our constitution doesn't give James Dobson one million votes. It only gives him one.