October 28, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

THE OUT-OF-TOUCH CHRISTIAN RIGHT

When I think of the Christian right, those people like Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, the Christian Coalition, etc., I think of Shirley Jackson's great short story "The Lottery." In the story a town has this mysterious ritual where one citizen of the town is selected in a lottery to be stoned to death. The Christian right has clung to a mythical view of history and morality that they would like to impose on everyone else. They had great success in capturing the Republican party, especially George W. Bush, in pushing their agenda. But abortion remains legal, school prayer is still illegal, most Americans are becoming more tolerant of gay rights and women's rights, and current Republican front runner Rudy Giuliani is anathema to the Christian right. Frank Rich talks about it in this column at www.nytimes.com:

But the most significant — and happiest — explanation for the values czars’ demise as a political force is that white evangelical Christians and a new generation of evangelical leaders have themselves steadily tacked a different course from the Dobson crowd. A CBS News poll this month parallels what the Times reporter David D. Kirkpatrick found in his examination of evangelicals for today’s Times Magazine. Like most other Americans, they are more interested in hearing from presidential candidates about the war in Iraq and health care than about any other issues.

Abortion and same-sex marriage landed at the bottom of that list; fighting poverty outpolled abortion as a personal priority by a 3-to-2 margin. To see just how large a gap separates that evangelical electorate from the values organizations that purport to speak in its name, just look at the Values Voter Summit that the Family Research Council convened to much press attention in Washington last weekend. In a survey of participants to determine which issue would be “most important” in choosing a presidential candidate, the summit’s organizers didn’t even think to list the war, health care or fighting poverty among the 12 hot-button options.