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- From: altheimm@nextnet.csus.edu (Murray Altheim)
- Subject: REPOST: Theocracy in America?
- Message-ID: <1992Nov16.200417.3867@csus.edu>
- Sender: news@csus.edu
- Organization: California State University Sacramento
- References: 1992Nov12.224955.27730@eskimo.celestial.com
- Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 20:04:17 GMT
- Lines: 689
-
- [I've had quite a few requests for the "Theocracy in America?"
- article, so here's the repost. It went through MS Word and back, so it
- varies in format from the original post, but is unchanged in content.
- My thanks to Ben Delisle for the original post. -- Murray]
-
- From: delisle@eskimo.celestial.com (Ben Delisle)
- Subject: Theocracy In America?
- Message-ID: 1992Nov12.224955.27730@eskimo.celestial.com>
- Summary: Xian take over of American government and politics, and take
- over of the GOP
- Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 10:25:52 PST
-
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Subject: Theocracy in America?
- [Reproduced without permission from the Denver Post, October 25, 1992]
-
- "We are going to place Pat Robertson on city councils, school boards
- and legislatures all over this country" -- Pat Robertson
-
- Born Again Politics The Religious Right and the GOP Story by Claire
- Martin
-
- When Pat Buchanan announced, "There is a religious war going on in our
- country for the soul of America" at the Republican National Convention
- last August, he was surrounded by GOP delegates who knew exactly what
- he was talking about.
-
- Forty percent of those delegates came to the convention through
- campaigns orchestrated by members of the Christian religious right --
- a collective term for fundamentalist, Pentecostal, evangelical and
- charismatic Christian Republicans who believe in a narrow, literal
- interpretation of the Bible. Most are newcomers to politics, elected
- through campaigns conducted through churches, fighting for dramatic
- changes at every level of government.
-
- They see themselves in a holy war, "Godly people" crusading against
- abortion-rights activists, gay and lesbian civil rights activists,
- family leave advocates, divorce, working women and feminists, sex
- education programs and school curricula that ignore creationism and
- other Bible-based teachings, including prayer.
-
- Most Americans have ignored the religious right, or dismissed it as a
- minority fringe. But the religious right is a powerful group, with a
- formidable political network that crosses state lines and an agenda to
- reconstruct this country's government from school boards to the Oval
- Office.
-
- When national campaign efforts foundered -- the 1988 presidential bids
- of televangelist Pat Robertson (now president of the Christian
- Coalition) and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke (whose campaign
- manager, Billy McCormack is now the Christian Coalition's Louisiana
- director) -- the religious right shifted its attention to local
- elections.
-
- After successfully placing candidates during 1990 local elections in
- California and Virginia, the religious right has multiplied its
- efforts. This year, though a network of Christian-based advocacy and
- education groups, it has coordinated campaigns and ballot initiatives
- throughout the country. Some examples:
-
- o Christian conservatives in Colorado network with Christian
- conservatives in Oregon, Missouri, Maine and Florida, sharing
- strategies to promote anti-gay rights initiatives. Two brochures
- advocating the Colorado and Oregon initiatives are almost identical.
-
- o In Iowa, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and a Michigan member of
- the Christian Coalition are working with the Iowa religious right to
- defeat a proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Iowa Constitution.
-
- o Republican caucuses in Colorado, Washington, Louisiana, Kansas,
- Michigan, Arizona, Oregon and other states were dominated by religious
- right delegates. They approved extremely conservative party platforms,
- alienating many mainstream Republicans. The Washington state platform
- recommends outlawing witchcraft and yoga, and the Republican national
- platform calls for a barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border.
-
- o Throughout the United States, hundreds of religious right
- candidates with no previous political experience won 1992 primary
- elections and caucuses, often to the surprise of longtime GOP
- politicians.
-
- Most of the religious right candidates -- including state legislature
- candidate and Fort Collins evangelical pastor Dan Nygaard -- won
- primaries in counties where religious right groups conducted election
- training seminars and distributed campaign guides laced with biblical
- references. (Although Nygaard's First Christian Church hosts a
- Citizens for Responsible Government seminar, he says he didn't attend
- it and decided on his own to run for office.)
-
- "It is a much more widespread phenomenon than most of us realize,"
- says Chip Perlez of Political Research Associates, a political
- watchdog organization in Boston.
-
- "The Christian Right is much more powerful in the Rocky Mountain West
- and the West Coast than it is in the East or the traditional Bible
- Belt. This is a particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity that's
- much more radical than the Bible Belt Christians."
-
- With a November ballot that focuses on several of the religious
- right's key issues -- gay rights, school vouchers and limited taxes --
- as well as elections featuring newcomers with ties to conservative
- Christian churches, Colorado is among the states that the religious
- right apparently has targeted in 1992.
-
- "I would say the national Christian Coalition is interested in a state
- whose ballot had any issues or any concerned candidate with true moral
- standards -- and by `moral standards' I mean biblical standards,
- really -- that are what we consider traditional family values," says
- David Nelson, director of the Christian Coalition's Colorado chapter.
-
- "The national Christian Coalition would be more interested in the
- results of that state's election than a state where none of the issues
- are being discussed or elected on."
-
- "One reason the religious right is hard to get a handle on, and a
- reason that the national media was surprised in Houston (at the GOP
- national convention), was that they fly under the radar," says David
- Crane, vice president of People for the American Way, the liberal
- Washington, D.C. organization that monitors the religious right and
- other groups.
-
- "They work on obscure elections, not state house or congressional
- races. They focus on school boards, planning boards and hospital
- boards -- elections where turnout traditionally is very light.
- Everyone looks at David Skaggs and the national picture. But the
- interesting thing is these stealth races -- elections that people pay
- no attention to. Those are the models for what's going on. One day,
- people are going to wake up and find the religious right running
- schools, city councils and their congressional districts."
-
- That is what some see happening in San Diego County, Calif. In 1990,
- the religious right backed a slate of nearly 90 candidates, including
- the local director of the Christian Coalition, for school boards,
- county council, hospital boards and other offices.
-
- Two-thirds of those candidates were elected, largely through campaigns
- conducted through fundamentalist churches. The candidates rejected the
- usual publicity of public debates, media interviews, candidate forums
- and sample questionnaires.
-
- Instead, volunteers for religious right candidates put fliers on cars
- in certain church parking lots, and campaigned by telephone using
- church directories. Volunteers distributing leaflets were instructed,
- in writing, to "be quiet about the flier project."
-
- One religious-right candidate, Tony Snesko, played down his religious
- beliefs during the Poway city council campaign. After his election, he
- began quoting scripture to support his opposition to gay-right
- initiatives.
-
- The success of largely unknown and inexperienced candidates astonished
- many San Diego citizens, spurring the formation of the Mainstream
- Voters Project, a nonpartisan watchdog group.
-
- "Our concern was that we had people elected to school boards, hospital
- boards, city councils, planning boards and other boards who did not
- campaign visibly at all," said Rita Collier, a San Diego resident who
- helped form the Mainstream Voters Project.
-
- "It wouldn't have been so surprising if they hadn't been elected.
- Who'd have cared? But when they were elected, you began wondering how
- they were elected, and as we looked into it, we found an underground
- campaign network among fundamentalist churches: phone banking, fliers
- in parking lots and less-visible means of getting out the word on
- candidates who, for the most part, had no previous experience."
-
- The newly elected board immediately had an impact on county policies.
- In Escondido, home of the Christian Voters League, a majority
- religious-right school board came within one vote of stripping an
- abstinence-based sex education course of all information on birth
- control.
-
- In other San Diego school districts, newly elected conservative board
- members objected to using federal Department of Agriculture surplus
- foods for school breakfast programs.
-
- "They said it was socialism and if we feed these children at school,
- it takes away from parental responsibility," Collier said.
-
- In November, about 200 religious-right candidates are on the San Diego
- ballots. The Christian Coalition also supported 16 candidates for the
- California legislature, with contributions ranging from $12,000 to
- $102,000. Twelve of the 16 candidates will be on the ballot.
-
- "We expect the religious right to export their San Diego tactics
- around the U.S., to other communities that might be ripe for
- takeover," Crane says. "Colorado and Oregon could become the next San
- Diegos."
-
- Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed, Jr. says San Diego
- is "a model of what Christians and evangelicals and pro-family Roman
- Catholics are attempting to do around the nation."
-
- "We're trying to generate as large a voter turnout as possible among
- our constituency by communicating with them in a way that does not
- attract the fire of our opponents," Reed told 1,000 people at the 1991
- Road to Victory conference sponsored by the coalition.
-
- During the past two years, the Christian Coalition sponsored Road To
- Victory conferences, where Christian Coalition officials pass out
- detailed manuals on the Republican delegate selection process in each
- state. This year Reed is distributing 40 million voter's guides to
- "pro-family" issues and candidates in dozens of elections, including
- Colorado candidate races and ballot initiatives.
-
- Local political activists in Colorado and other states are trained in
- seminars taught by the Christian Coalition Leadership School, Focus on
- the Family, Citizens for Responsible Government and other Christian
- groups. Instructional pamphlets like Dan Dazlich's "A Christian Guide
- to Colorado's Political System" explain the election process. The
- seminars emphasize intense last-minute campaign blitzes that target
- conservative church congregations.
-
- "I think this will be the most effective coordinated activity by
- evangelical Christians that we've ever seen," Reed told The Washington
- Post earlier this month.
-
- >From these seminars spring "pro-family" candidates and delegates with
- tremendous support from local church congregations. With most of
- Colorado's 35 evangelical ministries (including Focus on the Family)
- based in Colorado Springs, the religious right is especially powerful
- there.
-
- Marcy Morrison, a Colorado Springs Republican, probably was the first
- Colorado candidate who realized the power behind her opponent for the
- District 22 state legislative seat.
-
- Newcomer Ken Gray was a graduate of the Christian Broadcast Network
- University's law school (now Regent University law school), which Pat
- Robertson established as a Bible-based law school. His campaign
- targeted evangelical churches.
-
- Gray's primary campaign materials stressed his family values, but
- failed to discuss his anti-abortion stance -- something that Gray
- reserved for "targeted" audiences, he said at a New Life Church anti-
- abortion seminar.
-
- At the May GOP caucus in Colorado Springs, Gray walked away with 50
- percent of the delegates -- unprecedented for an inexperienced,
- unknown candidate, and something "that gave us our first clue,"
- Morrison said, "that we were in trouble."
-
- Although mainstream Republicans dismissed Morrison's fears, she
- campaigned vigorously, spending twice as much as Gray. She won by 27
- votes.
-
- Other Colorado Republicans, including incumbents Bonnie Allison, Stan
- Johnson and Marlene Fish, were defeated by newcomers. Penn Pfiffer,
- Lynn Watwood, Dan Nygaard, Pat Miller, Bryan Day, Bob McDonald, Drew
- Clark and Victor Mote all ran "pro-family" campaigns closely linked
- with conservative churches, and beat opponents who wrote them off.
-
- "He came out of nowhere," Alllison said of Watwood, an attorney who
- has worked for the Rutherford Institute and Colorado for Family
- Values.
-
- "When I polled people in June, I was winning 2-to-1. My supporters
- assumed I'd be okay. Watwood got to his followers, and they all
- voted."
-
- Allison has since endorsed Democratic candidate Mike Feeley, and
- changed her party affiliation to Independent.
-
- "I think it's great that people are getting involved," says Dudley
- Brown, deputy campaign manager for Republican evangelical pastor Bryan
- Day's congressional campaign against David Skaggs.
-
- "If school vouchers, pro-family values and limited government are the
- tenets of what you call the religious right, then I think people
- should be happy to be associated with it," Brown said. "The question
- is, if (the religious right) tries to impose (its) religious beliefs
- on others, then we have to be careful not to make a state-sponsored
- religion. But debate about all this is pretty healthy."
-
- >From Byran Day to Lyn Watwood, newcomer "pro-family" Republican
- candidates are opposed to abortion and gay rights, and in favor of
- school vouchers, limited government and legally requiring a balanced
- budget. Those are the issues that matter most to their targeted
- constituents.
-
- "When people talked to me, they asked how I felt about vouchers or
- abortion," says Morrison.
-
- "Especially abortion, over and over. They didn't discuss experience or
- background or positions on other issues because they weren't
- interested. As soon as I said I didn't think government should be
- involved in abortion, it was the end of the conversation."
-
- Abortion is a key issue for the Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for
- America, Focus on the Family, Iowa's Stop ERA, and other religious
- right groups. Lon Mabon's Oregon Citizens Alliance, which is backing
- the state's anti-gay rights Measure 9 this November, also has
- sponsored two unsuccessful anti-abortion ballot measures. The OCA also
- has opposed legislation for family leave and pre-kindergarten
- programs, objecting that the programs were anti-business and anti-
- family.
-
- Anti-abortion activists, led by Schlafly's Eagle Forum, also are the
- chief opponents of Iowa's Equal Rights Amendment. Marlene Elwell, a
- Michigan Republican who was the Midwest coordinator for Robertson's
- 1988 presidential bid, directs Iowa's Stop ERA campaign. A "Stop ERA"
- fund-raising letter, written by Robertson described the Iowa ERA as a
- "feminist agenda" that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill
- their children, practice witchcraft and become lesbians."
-
- In Colorado, Amendment 2's advocates include Colorado for Family
- Values, former U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong and University of Colorado
- football coach Bill McCartney, both opponents of abortion; Concerned
- Women for America; the Eagle Forum; Traditional Values Coalition; and
- the Christian Coalition. The ultimate goal, CFV chairman Will Perkins
- says, is to have a Constitutional amendment restricting homosexuals.
-
- "We operated a stealth campaign," CFV's Tony Marco told Christian
- American (the Christian Coalition's bimonthly newsletter), explaining
- CFV's signature gathering strategy for putting Amendment 2 on the
- November ballot.
-
- "We went under their radar. They never knew what strength we had."
-
- Since then, Marco also has advised and shared material with gay-rights
- opponents in Tampa, Fla., Portland, Maine, and Columbia, Mo. Anti-gay
- right brochures in those states, as well as Colorado and Oregon,
- liberally quote Paul Cameron, a Nebraska psychologist who believes
- people who are HIV-positive should be tattooed on their foreheads.
- (Cameron's controversial research on homosexual behavior caused both
- the American Psychological Association and the Nebraska Psychological
- Association to drop Cameron's membership, which CFV blames on
- political pressure from gays.)
-
- Tampa activists, led by Florida Christian Coalition director Tom
- Scott, and Portland activists succeeded in putting their initiatives
- on local ballots. Columbia activists are having trouble collecting
- enough signatures to qualify for an initiative.
-
- "It's fascinating what's happening around the country," says Eric
- Niewoehner. "We're mobilizing a section of society that hasn't been
- involved in politics, working with lay representatives from churches
- that have historically been low-key. Conservative Christians here have
- almost had a disgust for politics in the past. Now we're getting
- together, working on issues. Sex education. Pro life. The school
- prayer issue. I'd rather have these issues in an election because then
- people will show up (who) are more issue-based."
-
- Voters almost never turn out en masse for local elections or party
- precinct caucuses. Few know the names of local school board members,
- or attend neighborhood precinct meetings. Often if you want to be a
- delegate or make sure your candidate has enough support to get on the
- ballot, it's as easy as showing up at a meeting.
-
- "In some precincts, you can take over a caucus with only five people,"
- says Denver Republican Diane Dillingham, who has hosted two precinct
- meetings where she was the only attendee.
-
- "Send 40 people from your church, and you can control the caucus."
-
- With the help of caucus and candidate election seminar leaders, that's
- exactly what the religious right did this year. Throughout the U.S.,
- conservative Christians gained control, or near-control, of Republican
- caucuses and conventions in at least 12 states, including Colorado.
-
- Kansas Republicans estimated that 84 percent of their precinct
- delegates were members of the religious right. Fifty-four of more than
- 300 delegates in Kansas were arrested in 1991 Operation Rescue
- protests.
-
- In Colorado, religious right delegates composed between 40 percent and
- 50 percent of caucuses along the Front Range, targeting "certain
- counties -- Boulder, Jeffco, Weld and Larimer," says Republican Chris
- O'Dell.
-
- "If they don't control the party machinery up there now, they will
- soon."
-
- Nelson says his local Christian Coalition office has nothing to do
- with the success of conservative Christian candidates. He credits
- other groups, including Citizens for Responsible Government, a
- Christian anti-abortion group that distributed leaflets in
- congregation parking lots on the Sunday preceding the August primary
- and plans to repeat that tactic in November.
-
- "I don't call the Christian Coalition that effective," says Day
- staffer Dudley Brown. "I was a delegate to Houston. I think that was
- the Republican Party, right there. There are liberals in the party
- that are calling that extreme. Look at our platforms. Always
- conservative. Always have been. Did the religious right nutty zealots
- do all that? No. It's been around for a while."
-
- Although religious right candidates usually take pains to disassociate
- their campaigns from the Christian Coalition, it is Robertson's
- organization that ignited those campaigns and whose agenda goes beyond
- ensuring a public forum for its issues.
-
- Robertson has said that he wants the religious right to control the
- Republican Party by 1996. That would save a country controlled by a
- "tightly knit cabal whose goal is nothing less than a new order for
- the human race under the domination of Lucifer and his followers,"
- Robertson wrote in his 1991 book, "The New World Order."
-
- The alternative to the current U.S. government system, according to
- many conservative Christians, is Christian Reconstructionism, a
- movement founded by Californian Rousas John Rushdoony. Christian
- Reconstructionism is based on the belief that civil law would be
- grounded in a literal interpretation of the Bible
-
- Rushdoony is a regular on Robertson's "700 Club," envisions a
- theocratic United States. Churches, not welfare systems, would be
- responsible for the poor. Private schools would replace public
- schools. Whipping and capital punishment would punish prisoners,
- replacing prisons. That vision appeals to many who consider themselves
- "pro-family" and anti-government.
-
- "They're trying to turn the country into a theocracy, and we're not
- going to let it happen," Anne Witte, a moderate Republican in
- Washington state, told the Seattle Times. Republicans formed the New
- Agenda, a pro-choice, pro-controlled-growth group to counter the
- impact of religious right Republicans
-
- Other mainstream Republicans responded to the religious right by re-
- registering as Democrats or Independent. Many are pessimistic: "Wait
- and see," said on Colorado Springs Republican. "They're going to make
- a dent in textbooks, they'll censor everything but the books they
- consider acceptable."
-
- Members of the religious right say that such changes are what this
- country needs.
-
- "It's obvious we need new people in government, and the Christian have
- been in the background for too many years," the Colorado Christian
- Coalition's Nelson says.
-
- "The fact they're getting involved now is good for everybody. We talk
- about traditional family values and morality, and the country needs
- both. We used to be PG-rated, and now we're an X-rated society."
-
- To maintain the momentum, the activism will continue after Election
- Day. Focus on the Family and the Rocky Mountain Family Council are
- sponsoring a Community Impact Seminar in Colorado Springs next month
- to provide "practical guidance on how to speak on behalf of family
- concerns."
-
- The same seminar, held last month in Denver, provides "the Biblical
- basis for political activism," according to a promotional letter about
- the event. The letter described Focus on the Family's "expanded
- involvement in the public policy arena," which the organization
- describes as educational and nonpartisan.
-
- Mainstream Republicans question whether such seminars violate laws
- limiting the politics of tax-exempt churches. Dillingham admires the
- religious right's campaign coordination, but questions their forums.
-
- "They say all they're doing is educating, not advocating, but where
- does educating become advocating?" she asked.
-
- "We need to explore where they break down the traditional separation
- of church and state, like training sessions in their church, like the
- tacit compliance of ministers when pamphlets are passed out, or
- passing out "voters guides" in churches that are tax exempt but
- clearly indicate which candidate to vote for."
-
- Other Republicans think it's too late to ask those questions.
-
- "I think there elections are a warning in neon light to Republicans,"
- says Republican Claire Traylor.
-
- "Either we wake up to it and do something else, or we organize to
- reconstruct our party to it represents a broad base, the old values,
- and eliminate some of these new things being promoted by what I think
- is a small minority. But Lord knows if it's small anymore. We may have
- already lost the battle in Colorado. You and I don't know that. We'll
- find that out in the election, I guess.
-
-
-
- The Organizations
-
- While Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition is usually identified with
- the religious right, dozens of other organizations espouse the same
- values and causes. These organizations are among the most prominent
- groups in Colorado and nationwide. The national groups generally
- associated with state and local affiliates that may have different
- names. Membership figures were not available for all the
- organizations.
-
-
-
- American Family Association
-
- President: Rev. Don Wildmon.
-
- National Membership: 450,000
-
- Wildmon also has formed the American Family Association Law Center,
- which provides legal assistance in religious-right causes. AFA
- provided financial and organizing support to the Take Back Tampa
- Political Committee, which is fighting a Tampa, Fla., gay rights
- ordinance. It also is active nationally in challenges to the National
- Endowment for the Arts.
-
-
-
- Christian Action Network
-
- Founder: Martin Mawyer, a former Moral Majority official
-
- Their current issue: "educat(ing) the American public on what Bill
- Clinton has promised the homosexual community" and working to repeal
- gay-rights ordinances in Colorado and Oregon. Creators of an anti-gay
- rights/anti-Clinton television commercial that is airing nationally on
- commercial and Christian television stations.
-
-
-
- Christian Coalition
-
- President: Pat Robertson.
-
- National membership: 400 chapters in 46 states, with 175,000 members.
-
- The coalition sponsors annual Road to Victory conferences to educate
- members on campaigning for local and state elections, as well as
- Christian Coalition Leadership School seminars throughout the United
- States to train political activists to conduct civic and partisan
- campaigns, hoping to train 25,000 activists by 1995. The group also
- supports efforts to overturn gay-rights ordinances, challenge public
- school textbooks and library books, oppose family leave and some
- federal assistance programs, including federally funded school
- breakfasts.
-
-
-
- Citizens for Excellence in Education
-
- President: Bob Simonds.
-
- CEE's mission is to elect members of the group to all 16,000 school
- boards throughout the United States. Simonds also founded the National
- Association of Christian Educators and has published pamphlets and
- booklet, including "How to Elect Christians to Public Offices," a
- questionnaire for school-board candidates. CEE also mounts challenges
- to public school textbooks and library books. In the 1991-1992 school
- year, CEE activists objected to "Little Red Riding Hood," J.D.
- Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye," John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and
- Men" and other books, basing those objections on perceived references
- to satanism, occultism and New Age beliefs.
-
-
-
- Colorado for Family Values
-
- Chairman: Will Perkins
-
- CFV began in 1991 to defeat a legislative initiative to protect
- homosexuals from harassment and discrimination, and a Colorado Springs
- gay-rights initiative. CFV is the driving force behind Amendment 2,
- and has assisted in anti-gay rights campaigns in Oregon, Columbia,
- Mo., Portland, Maine, and Tampa, Fla. CFV's board of directors include
- Sharon Bath, who attended the 1991 Christian Coalition "Road to
- Victory" conference; Barbara Sheldon of the Colorado chapter of the
- Traditional Values Coalition; Randy Hicks of Focus on the Family; the
- Rev. Leon Kelly, the anti-gang activist; and Bert Nelson, president of
- the Colorado chapter of Concerned Women for America.
-
-
-
- Concerned Women for America
-
- President and founder: Beverly LaHay.
-
- Membership: Given as 500,000 to 600,000 nationwide.
-
- This ultraconservative anti-feminist, anti-gay rights group supported
- U.S. Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, and has
- actively mounted grass-roots campaigns in many state and local
- elections. CWFA is fighting Iowa's Equal Rights Amendment and gay-
- rights measures in Colorado, Oregon, Georgia, Florida and Maine. The
- group also has challenged public-school textbooks and library books
- for failing to promote biblical values.
-
-
-
- Eagle Forum President
-
- and Founder: Phyllis Schafly.
-
- National Membership: Given as 50,000 to 80,000
-
- This organization was active in locally based battles against abortion
- right, day care, family leave and other issues, especially the 1992
- battle to defeat Iowa's ERA. An offshoot of the Eagle Forum
- successfully campaigned in Jacksonville, Fla., to have the school
- board adopt "Teen Aid," a sex-education curriculum that advocates
- abstinence as the only form of birth control. A Planned Parenthood
- suit against the program claims it is religiously based, inaccurate
- and fails to meet state statutory requirements for sex education.
- Eagle Forum, with Colorado's Focus On The Family, also was active in
- pressuring the Alabama state school board to ban HIV/AIDS education
- material from state-approved school materials.
-
-
-
- Focus On The Family
-
- President: James Dobson.
-
- This group is based in Colorado Springs and has a $60 million annual
- budget. It is active nationwide in supporting anti-abortion and anti-
- gay rights candidates. Focus on the Family has several associate
- coalitions of special-interest groups who purpose, Dobson has said, is
- to ensure legislators "can no longer write off the concerns of
- conservative Christian families."
-
- Active in opposing gay-rights and equal-rights amendment ordinances,
- and in challenges to public school textbooks and library books, Focus
- On The Family sponsors Community Impact Seminars, "encourag(ing)
- Christian involvement at a grassroots level," in Colorado and other
- states.
-
-
-
- National Empowerment Television
-
- Director: Paul Weyrich, co-founder with Jerry Falwell of Moral
- Majority.
-
- NET stresses issues important to the religious right, featuring
- programs with high-ranking government officials including cabinet
- secretaries and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
-
-
-
- Rutherford Institute
-
- Co-founder: R.J. Rushdoony
-
- The institute is based at Virginia Beach, Va., near the Christian
- Coalition national headquarters. Rushdoony is a leading Christian
- reconstructionist who advocates restructuring civil law to be grounded
- on a literal interpretation of the Bible. The institute focuses on
- anti-abortion rights and "religious liberty" cases advocating public
- prayer, including creationism in public-school curricula. Rutherford
- Institute materials are used by gay-rights opponents in Colorado and
- Oregon.
-
-
-
- Traditional Values Coalition
-
- President: Lou Sheldon.
-
- Membership: 7,000 conservative Christian churches in California and
- representatives in other states, including Colorado, where TVC of
- Colorado chairman Barbara Sheldon is an executive board member of
- Colorado for Family Values. TVC is a formidable force in California,
- campaigning against abortion and gay-rights laws. Working with other
- "pro-family" groups, Sheldon has announced plans to conduct 40 to 50
- seminars throughout California "to train our public affairs
- representatives to go back to their churches and educate people before
- talking about voter registration.
-
-
-
- "You can have Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson stand in front of a bank
- of microphones and endorse our candidates, or you can quietly send out
- a pro-family slate that tells our community who the candidates are our
- ballot." -- Ralph Reed, Jr.
-
- "America is at a crossroads. Either she returns to her Christian roots
- or she will continue to legalize sodomy, slaughter innocent babies,
- destroy the minds of her children, squander her resources and sink
- into oblivion. -- Pat Robertson
-
- "We want as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican Party
- in the hands of pro-family Christians by 1996." -- Pat
- Robertson
-
- "It's very naive to think that there's a peaceful co-existence today
- (between liberals and conservatives), and the bottom line is, it's
- either us or them. -- The Rev. Billy Falling, Christian Voters
- League
-
-
-
-
- --
- Murray M. Altheim "Ils ont l'orteil de Bouc, & d'un Chevreil l'oreille,
- Instructional Consultant La corne d'un Chamois, & la face vermeille
- CSU, Sacramento Comme un rouge Croissant: & dancent toute nuict
- altheimm@csus.edu Dedans un carrefour, ou pres d'une eau qui bruict."
-