This past week, the state legislatures in Kansas and Oklahoma joined Texas, Alabama, South Dakota, Virginia and Michigan in passing legislation to allow adoption agencies that cite their religious beliefs for not placing children in LGBT homes. Given that the conservative Republicans dominate most of the state legislative chambers in the U.S. it should come as no surprise that the Christian Right is seeking to make the most of the opportunity.
As it happens, I recently came across a 116 page state legislative strategy playbook from one faction of the Christian Right and published a story about it at Religion Dispatches. The manual is an illuminating read, since it shows the way they package of 20 model bills under the rubric of religious freedom, while making clear their intention to impose conservative Christian dominion. the bills range from from using public schools to promote narrow and self serving views of American history, to restricting access to reproductive health care to employing the liberatory idea of religious freedom to oppress LGBTQ people — like they are doing in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Here is part of what I wrote:
Many of the bills on their agenda are making news; some have passed key legislative committees or whole state legislative chambers, and some have already been signed into law. But what reporters, activists, and most legislators don’t realize is that many of these bills draw from an unusual package of 20 model bills included in a report assembled by a coalition of Christian Right groups for an initiative they call “Project Blitz.”
The bills are seemingly unrelated and range widely in content—from requiring public schools to display the national motto, “In God We Trust” (IGWT); to legalizing discrimination against LGBTQ people; to religious exemptions regarding women’s reproductive health. The model bills, the legislative strategy and the talking points reflect the theocratic vision that’s animated a meaningful portion of the Christian Right for some time. In the context of Project Blitz’s 116-page playbook, however, they also reveal a sophisticated level of coordination and strategizing that echoes the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which infamously networks probusiness state legislators, drafts sample legislation, and shares legislative ideas and strategies.
Launched initially in 2015, Project Blitz brings something new and dramatic to the Christian Right as it continues to mature as a political movement—especially in light of its electoral advances in state governments over the past decade. To that end, Project Blitz has also been organizing state legislative “Prayer Caucuses” since its inception. There are currently 29 such groups, modeled on the Congressional Prayer Caucus (which comprises about a hundred sitting U.S. Senators and Representatives.) They range from very small in terms of publicly named members, to remarkably large; Iowa boasts 65 members, plus the Governor and Lt. Governor.
The principal bill mill for Project Blitz is the Chesapeake, VA- based, Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation (CPCF), an offshoot of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, both creations of former Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA). The Foundation operates Project Blitz in partnership with Wallbuilders, headed by Christian nationalist and Republican Party operative, David Barton, and the National Legal Foundation, on whose board Barton also sits. The Project Blitz “Steering Team” includes Lea Carawan of the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, Bill Dallas of United in Purpose (a Christian Right strategic and capacity building organization), Buddy Pilgrim, a businessman who served as National Director for Faith & Religious Liberty for the 2016 presidential campaign of Ted Cruz, and of course David Barton. The Project Blitz report was published at the end of 2017 and is central to the Christian Right’s agenda in the states. Both a review of the political lessons of the past, and a preparation for the 2018 legislative season, the report was “reviewed by legislators, professors, attorneys, litigators, and religious liberty defense firms. It includes best practice Legislation, Resolutions, Talking Points, Notes, and Legal Cases.”
Lea Carawan of CPCF said at the time of the launch that Project Blitz is the lead of what they call the First Freedom Coalition, which is not a formal but a “relational coalition,” intended to increase communication and coordination between members of the “religious freedom movement.” This includes such groups as the Heritage Foundation, Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Family Policy Councils, which are state-level lobbies affiliated with both Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council.
According to the Project Blitz playbook, the CPCF’s purpose is not to advocate for any particular bill or approach, and it acknowledges that its list is not “exhaustive.” It says their main purpose is to offer legislators the benefit of “the collective wisdom and experience of individual legislators and legal teams,” and of “groups who have or will support such legislation.” (It cedes the main antiabortion agenda to Americans United for Life, which specializes in state legislation.)
The model bills are grouped into three categories according to the degree of opposition they anticipate—1 being the least. The general plan is to begin with the less controversial measures to get legislators comfortable with the subject matter; to seek small victories first.
Bills in the first category, such as those requiring or allowing the display of “In God We Trust” in public schools and other public buildings, have been signed into law in Florida, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee so far in 2018. Similar bills were enacted in past years in Colorado, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Virginia.*
At the teleconference to launch Project Blitz on February 16, 2016, David Barton, explained to state legislators that the IGWT bills and the bills in Category 1 are, “kinda like whack-a-mole for the other side. It’ll drive them crazy that they will have to divide their resources out in opposing this… they won’t know what to do with this and it’ll be great!”
Paul Rosenberg, followed up with an explosive story at Salon that goes deeper into the issues of Christian nationalism and Dominionism. And I told Bill Berkowitz, writing at Truthout:
“It will be tempting for some people who have never heard of this before, to be skeptical about its significance… But they have been growing steadily for several years and although their theocratic program has not caught on like the evangelical revival that their language sometimes suggests that it must, they have made solid progress and cannot be dismissed."