From: emarsh@hernes-sun.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Marsh)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality,alt.sex,soc.singles
Subject: Robertson Roulette
Date: 15 Oct 1992 04:02:48 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: hernes-sun

Church & State
October 1992
 
 
                     Robertson Roulette
                     by Joesph L. Conn
 
 
 The Bush Campaign needs The Religious Rights Support, But
         Can The Average American Voter Stand Pat?
 
 
A although many pundits have described 1992 as the "Year of
the Woman" in electoral politics, religious broadcaster Pat
Robertson isn't so sure.
 
"The feminist agenda," he observed in a recent letter to his
supporters. "is not about equal rights for women. It is
about a socialist, anti-family political movement that
encourages women to leave their husbands. kill their
children. practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become
lesbians."
 
Robertson undoubtedly intended his remarks to be seen only
by a select audience -Christian Coalition donors in Iowa
where an Equal Rights Amendment is on the ballot this
November. But the Virginia Beach television evangelist's
diatribe was leaked to the media, and stories about it
appeared in newspapers and on news broadcasts around the
nation.
 
Democrats were gleeful. Such shrill rhetoric coming from a
George Bush ally who gave a major address at the Republican
Party convention in Houston was sure to turn off female
voters and paint the Republicans as extremist.
 
At a rally in Memphis. Pauline Gore. mother of the
Democratic vice presidential candidate, drove home the
point. Noting that similar things were said when women were
fighting for the right to vote, she criticized both Bush and
Robertson. "It's appalling to me that they have left the
family values the they were taught," she remarked. A pleased
Bill Clinton stood nearby beaming.
 
Red-faced Republican campaign officials scurried for cover.
"Because someone is supportive of the president does not
mean the the campaign is associated with every statement
that person may utter," Bush flack Tony Mitchell told the
Virginian-Pilot.
 
A vacationing Pat Robertson was unavailable for comment, but
his top political aide Ralph Reed was unrepentant. "I've
received nothing but accolades from supporters around the
country," he boasted.
 
The feminism flap is just one example of why the president
and his Republican Party allies are nervous about their ties
to Robertson and other branches of the Religious Right. The
religious conservatives' exotic views and insatiable
political demands make an alliance problematic at best, but
the Republican team covets the Virginia Beach broadcasters
sophisticated computerdriven network of grassroots activists
and loyal right-wing voters. Bush campaign official Charles
Black said Robertson represents a "very powerful, important
constituency."
 
The Bush team has worked tirelessly to prove to Robertson
and company that he deserves their support. Tn addition to a
primetime spot on the podium at the GOP convention,
Robertson was given Vice President Dan Quayle to address the
Christian Coalition's "God and Country Rally" in Houston. In
July the president himself granted Robertson an exclusive
interview for his "700 Club" program on the Christian
Broadcasting Network. (The two were photographed in front of
the Old Executive Office Building in Washington.) In August
Bush traveled to Virginia Beach to address the Christian
Coalition's "Road to Victory II" Conference.
 
The Religious Right is clearly a growing force in the
Republican Party that must be dealt with. Robertson and his
Christian Coalition claimed only 300 delegates at the GOP
convention, but when other religious conservatives were
added in, some observers estimated that as many as 40
percent of the delegates represented factions of the
Religious Right. The party platform, an agenda far to the
right of Bush and many Republicans, showed the Religious
Right's strength -and its hard-nosed antipathy to compromise
on social issues.
 
The same hardline mentality showed up in many states around
the county as Christian Coalition troops and their allies
fought Old Guard Republicans for control of the party
apparatus. The frequent result was animosity and lots of
negative press. Here are some examples:
 
     * California: The battle between Republican moderates
and religious conservatives in California is well known (see
"California Dreamin."' October 1991 Church & State), and
recent press accounts indicate that the bitterness is
escalating. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, a
vulgar flier has been distributed in San Diego County
attacking the Mainstream Voters Project (MVP) a group that
monitors the Religious Right. The flier called one MVP
leader a "bitter man-hating b----" and another "a militant
dwarf who uses MVP to meet other women with hairy chests."
Christian Right leaders denied any knowledge of the document
and charged that the MVP may have produced it to create
publicity.
 
     * Texas: With the Christian Coalition's Dick Weinhold
and other Religious Right figures serving on the platform
committee, Texas Republicans adopted an agenda in June that
included support for private and home schooling, a federal
voucher system, an end to the teaching of "secular humanism"
in public schools, support for "creation science," a school
prayer amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a ban on all
abortions and "swift and unencumbered" capital punishment.
 
Dr. Steven Hotze, a newly elected state executive committee
member observed in the Houston Chronicle. "If we are to
survive as a free nation, and if justice and liberty are to
be restored in our land, then biblical Christianity, with
its absolutes, must once again be embraced by our citizens."
 
     * Washington: Although Washington is one of the
nation's most unchurched states, the Republican convention
there was dominated by Religious Right forces who adopted
platform planks calling for a ban on all abortions, the
removal of "witchcraft" from the public schools and a ban on
the hiring of homosexuals in the fields of education and
health care. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
 
some delegates openly called for the abolition of church-
state separation.
 
     * Virginia: Pat Robertson favorite Patrick McSweeney
was elected GOP chairman earlier this year, signaling new
strength for the television evangelist in the Old Dominion.
Robertson and his son Gordon (who serves as 2nd District
party chairman) were among Virginia delegates to the
national convention. When the Christian Coalition's clout
resulted in the election of several state legislators in the
Virginia Seach area, some GOP critics were intimidated into
silence.
 
"There's a lot of concern that Pat Robertson and his
Christian Coalition is trying to dominate the party." GOP
delegate Tony Zevgolis told The Washington Times. "But
nobody in their right mind would snub the Christian Right.
They're too valuable in winning elections." Controversial
Reagan administrations figure Oliver North, a Robertson
crony, met with the Virginia delegation in Houston in
preparation for a possible U.S. Senate try.
 
     * Iowa: Christian Coalition members and their allies
easily dominated the stale GOP convention, adopting a
platform that Des Moines Register columnist Jennifer
Mitchell said "reads like one of those religious pamphlets
hawked door-to-door and on street comers." The platform
attacks secular humanism, situation ethics, one-world
government, "the PETA philosophy" and the Equal Rights
Amendment. It supports an abortion ban, capital punishment,
corporal punishment, prayer in public schools and "teaching
the recognition of the existence of a Supreme Being and the
validity of moral absolutes." Former state representative
Sue Mullins told the Register, "This is no longer a
political party. This is a religious cult." .
 
     * Colorado: Christian Coalition activists in the
Centennial State made no secret of their views on the
relationship between religion and government. According to
Rocky Mountain News columnist Peter Slake, the group
distributed a flier at the state GOP convention which said.
"The Separation of Church and State is (1) Not a teaching of
the founding Fathers; (2) Not an historical teaching; (3)
Nor a teaching of law (except in recent years); (4) Not a
biblical teaching.
 
"In summary." said the CC's state director David S. Nelson,
"There should be absolutely no 'Sepitrarion of Church and
State' in America."
 
     * Louisiana: According to New Orleans-baed reporter
Jason Berry, evangelicals control a third of the GOP State
Central Committee's 144 seats, voting in lockstep on
controversial issues. Writing in the Washington Post, Berry
charged that in some communities Religious Right forces are
teaming up with followers of neo-Nazi David Duke to seize
control of local party offices.
 
     * South Carolina: Republican Gov. Carroll Campbell and
other GOP leaders seem willing to make a marriage of
convenience with Robertson and his congregation. The
governor attended a June 27 kickoff luncheon for the state
Christian Coalition affiliate. Other Republican officials
and candidates showed up as well. According to The State, a
Columbia newspaper, Robertson Told the crowd of 1,000 that
his organization hopes to build a nationwide network of 600
chapters by the end of the year. "Our goal in 1992 is to
elect a strong conservative majority in Congress." he said.
 
     * Alaska: Religious Right forces remain strong in the
state GOP. Former state legislator Edna DeVries has been
chosen as national committeewoman. DeVries is perhaps best
known for her unsuccessful 1986 campaign for lieutenant
governor. During the race. she called the United States a
Christian nation and dismissed the concept of church-state
separation. Of those who disagreed with her stand, DeVries
said. "I thing they have a right to do what they want, but
they shouldn't live in the United States. Maybe they should
live in some other country. If they don't honor the United
States as a Christian nation and they don't want to be a
Christian, then there are many other countries that are not
Christian."
 
The extremist rhetoric from Christian Right figures around
the country is probably worrisome to Bush campaign
officials, but it really isn't that much different from the
shoot-from-the-hip statements made by Pat Robertson himself
-some of them aimed at the party's presidential nominee. In
his most recent book "The New World Order," the television
evangelist claims that an international conspiracy has been
plotting for centuries to install a one-world Satanic
dictatorship. Noting George Bush's ties to the Council on
Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, Robertson
suggests that the president and those around him may be part
of a sinister plot.
 
"It may well be," writes Robertson, "that men of goodwill
like Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush, who
sincerely want a larger community of nations living at peace
in our world, are in reality unknowingly and unwittingly
carrying out the mission and mouthing the phrases of 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."
 
The millionaire broadcaster has also continued his dalliance
with Christian Reconstructionism, the radical movement that
seeks to impose "biblical law," including harsh Old
Testament sanctions, on all aspects of modem American
society. Robertson recently told Christianity Today that he
is not a devotee of the theocratic drive, but he refused to
disavow its goals.
 
"I don't agree with Reconstructionism." he said. "although I
do believe that Jesus is Lord of all the world. I believe
that he is Lord of the government, and the church, and
business and education, and hopefully, one day, Lord of the
press....I want the church to move into the world."
 
In a subsequent issue of the magazine, Christian
Reconstructionist leader Gary DeMar said Robertson's stated
position represents the "heart and soul" of the theonomic
movement. "Reconstructionists have been saying this and
getting criticized for it for over 30 ycvrs." he said. "At
the very least. Pat Robertson, as I've always suspected, is
an operational Reconstructionist."
 
Robertson political operatives know that in many ways Bush
needs them more than they need him. Well on their way toward
building a strong grassroots army, they are confident of
their ultimate success regardless or the outcome of the race
for the White House. Their agenda is rapidly advancing no
matter what happens in this year's presidential contest. The
Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed told Christianity Today.
"The media are missing it. This isn't the year of the woman;
this is the year of the Lord."

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