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Ten Top Stories Expose the Religious Right
Bush's most controversial appointment, Attorney General John Ashcroft, is a long-standing opponent of abortion rights, gay rights, and affirmative action. Ashcroft is also a strong supporter of the president's faith-based initiative which, had it been passed and signed into law, would have led to the wholesale transfer of social service programs into the hands of religious organizations. As a Senator, Ashcroft was the primary supporter of the "charitable choice" provision inserted into the 1996 Welfare Reform bill. Another appointee and a staunch opponent of reproductive rights is former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson who heads the Department of Health and Human Services. Thompson is widely credited for initiating many of the so-called welfare reforms that were eventually incorporated into the 1996 Welfare Reform Act.
According to Alfred Ross, President of the Institute for Democracy Studies, James has "responsibility for placing vast numbers of individuals throughout the White House, the national security apparatus, government agencies, and other posts of the federal bureaucracy." Wade Horn, co-founder and former president of the National Fatherhood Initiative, is now Assistant Secretary for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. And Don Eberly, Fatherhood Initiative co-founder was appointed deputy director to John DiIulio at the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and is now acting director of the agency. Bush's appointments have shaped the most conservative presidential administration since the presidency of Ronald Reagan. In fact, Bush has out-Reaganed Reagan. "For the first time since religious conservatives became a modern political movement, the president of the United States has become the movement's de facto leader -- a status even Ronald Reagan, though admired by religious conservatives, never earned. Christian publications, radio and television shower Bush with praise, while preachers from the pulpit treat his leadership as an act of providence," writes the Washington Post's Dana Milbank. Many longtime conservative leaders agree. "These are our people," said Jay Sekulow of Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice." Paul Weyrich, the head of the Free Congress Foundation, widely recognized as the "godfather of the New Right," and the very influential Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform agree that the Bush Administration is staffed with more experienced and politically savvy conservatives than the Reagan Administration. Not all has been smooth sailing with the Christian Right. The president's faith-based initiative unveiled two weeks after his inauguration as a cornerstone of his domestic policy agenda, floundered. Although it passed in the House in July, it has been stalled at the doors of the Senate. After only six months on the job, Director John DiIulio was forced to resign under pressure from conservatives. 2001 saw no major anti-abortion legislation and a school voucher provision was stripped from the president's education bill. A minor brouhaha developed when Bush made a few gay appointments, ruffling the feathers of the folks at Concerned Women for America's Culture and Family Institute. CFI issued a report branding the administration as unnecessarily "gay-friendly." The following are the Top Ten Religious Right Stories I covered during 2001 : 1. Reverend Falwell's hate and cowardice: Spinning tragedy into propaganda September 14, 2001
Falwell added: "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve." The Washington Post reported that Robertson agreed with Falwell's remarks saying "Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population," Robertson added. Falwell was condemned and eventually issued a rather twisted and half-hearted apology. In early-October, Falwell's son sent out a fundraising appeal that claimed "liberals, and especially gay activists" had launched "a vicious smear campaign to discredit him [his father]." The letter said that Falwell was "being roundly vilified by the news media for remarks he made in a TV interview while calling for spiritual revival in America." 2. Robertson's resignation: Sounding the death knell for the Christian Coalition? December 10, 2001
With Robertson at the helm and the cherubic and politically savvy Ralph Reed as executive director, donations poured in, membership soared, conservative politicians showed up in droves at the Coalition's annual "Road to Victory" conferences, and the organization perfected the art of the one-sided voter "guide." Robertson's resignation will give him more time for apocalyptic visions, zany opinions and erroneous weather forecasts. Will the Christian Coalition survive? That, in part, will be up to Roberta Combs, its new executive director. 3. Hollow Hallelujahs: The post-911 spiritual revival is more hype than reality December 3, 2001 Maybe there was and maybe there wasn't a full-blown religious revival after September 11. Bible sales were up as were the sales of Christian CDs and other religious paraphernalia. Did this mean that more Americans became believers? Many on the Religious Right were grateful for the opportunity to save a few more souls. But, in the largest survey of its kind, the American Religious Identification Survey 2001, carried out under the auspices of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, found: "Often lost amidst the mesmerizing tapestry of faith groups that comprise the American population, is also a vast and growing population of those without faith. They adhere to no creed nor choose to affiliate with any religious community. These are the seculars, the unchurched, the people who profess no faith in any religion." 4. The abortion worker hit list: Fugitive confesses to anthrax threats letters and plots to kill 42 November 28, 2001 This story could have been titled "Horsley meets anthrax homeboy." On the Friday after Thanksgiving, Clayton Lee Waagner, a fugitive on the FBI's Most Wanted list, showed up at Neal Horsley's Carrollton, Georgia home for a sit down. (Horsley is the anti-abortion fanatic who a few years back developed the notorious Nuremberg Files hit list at his Christian Gallery website.) Waagner confessed to having mailed out anthrax threats to more than 400 health care clinics and he told Horsley he was about to embark on a killing spree - earmarking 42 abortion workers for death -- unless they gave up their day jobs. A few weeks after the visit, Waagner was caught duplicating himself at a Cincinnati Kinkos.
5. Girl Scouts under fire Why I started buying boxes and boxes of cookies: August 14, 2001 Although the Boy Scouts got the most media attention of the media due to their ongoing anti-gay policies, the Girl Scouts came in for special attacks from several Christian Right organizations wary of its so-called pro-feminist and pro-lesbian bent. 6. Discrimination, faith-based style: The story behind the Bush Administration's secret deal with the Salvation Army to discriminate against gays and lesbians July 24, 2001 I'm not sure if this story was the first "Gate" of the Bush Administration (I'm sure it will not be the last) but revelations by the Washington Post that Bush's top aide Karl Rove, and Don Eberly, then-the deputy director of the White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, had been holding secret meetings with the Salvation Army, sent the president's already troubled faith-based initiative into a tailspin. In exchange for the Salvation Army's support for the president's initiative, the White House would guarantee that religious institutions receiving government grants would be allowed to circumvent state and local measures barring discriminatory hiring practices against gays and lesbians. 7. Salvation Army marches to the Right: Under pressure, the charity rescinds domestic partners benefits proposal November 14, 2001
8. Bush's faith-based initiative: Krishnas, Moonies and Scientologists want in on the action February 27, 2001 Separation of church and state advocates and gay civil rights groups came out forcefully against the president's faith-based initiative when he unveiled it in late January. However, criticism also came from unexpected quarters - several Religious Right leaders. On his Christian Broadcasting Network's 700 Club, Pat Robertson confessed to being deeply troubled that groups like Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church and the Church of Scientology might get in on the action. Robertson claimed that Moon's operation uses "brainwashing techniques" on recruits and, he added, the Church of Scientology has been "accused of all sorts of underhanded tactics." Richard Land, President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said he wouldn't touch faith-based money "with the proverbial ten-foot pole." 9. Reproductive rights and wrongs: NOW wins victory against anti-abortion foes December 14, 2001 In early October, nearly sixteen years after proceedings began, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the first-ever-nationwide injunction against Joe Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League and his supporters. A National Organization for Women (NOW) press release said that the suit was filed "to stop anti-abortion mobsters from denying women access to reproductive health services. Scheidler himself nicknamed his group the 'pro-life mafia,' and said their aim is to stop abortion 'by any means necessary.' In 1998 a unanimous jury found Scheidler and his co-defendants to be racketeers under RICO, the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. In 1999, a Federal District Court sided with NOW and the clinics by establishing a permanent, nationwide injunction. Scheidler appealed the ruling on several grounds, including the First Amendment right of free speech." NOW President Kim Gandy added: "The court noted that 'the First Amendment does not protect violent co! nduct' and that 'violence in any form is the antithesis of reasoned discussion'." Scheidler is expected to appeal the decision and the case could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
10. Harry Potter's new foe: The Religious Right opens up new front in the 'culture wars' November 12, 2001 Theatergoers turned Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone into a huge box office hit, but not everyone was delighted by the film's success. Just as the four Harry Potter books had been criticized by many on the Christian Right, the movie also got their blood boiling. Witchcraft, magic, devil worship - you name it and the film was lambasted for encouraging it. By year's end, Jack Brock, the founder and pastor of the Alamogordo, New Mexico-based Christ Community Church organized an old-fashioned Harry Potter book burning because, he said, they are "a masterpiece of satanic deception.'' Bill Berkowitz is a freelance writer covering right-wing movements. Contact him at wkbbronx@aol.com |
2001 begins with the confirmation of John Ashcroft as attorney general, but the year gets better from there 
Karl Rove 
Pat Robertson: His Christian Coalition is losing steam 
For a nanosecond, it looked like the Western Territory of the Salvation Army was ready to march into the twenty-first century by providing domestic partners benefits for its employees. When Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family and the Reverend Donald Wildmon's American Family Association caught wind of this initiative they went ballistic and organized an impressive campaign involving a blitzkrieg of letters, phone calls, e-mail and faxes to the national headquarters of the Salvation Army. Within a few days the national office buckled under and nixed the idea.
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