Citizens for Community Values

I seem to remember a time, not all that long ago, when any effort by Democrats or liberals to try to forge unified a approach with Republican neocons and right-wing leaders on how to deal with the issue of terrorism would have been shot down amid screams from the Right that they had no intention of working with a bunch of America-hating, terrorist-appeasing traitors. 

But times have changed and now it looks like Gary Bauer, who has recently been fancying himself something of a national security expert, has taken it upon himself to round up a bunch of other Religious Right leaders and magnanimously offer to meet with President-Elect Barack Obama so they can share their suggestions:

Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values, and 12 other conservative leaders are seeking to work with President-elect Barack Obama on a unified agenda designed to produce an enduring national consensus in support of policies designed to defeat Islamist terrorism.

In a letter sent today to President-elect Obama, the conservative leaders write: "In a heartfelt spirit of cooperation, we are eager to work with you and your administration to identify, advocate, and implement an innovative and robust agenda designed to achieve a lasting victory over the violent Islamists committed to killing Americans on a mass scale."

In addition to Mr. Bauer, signatories include: Donald E. Wildmon, Chairman, American Family Association; Chuck Donovan, Executive Vice President, Family Research Council; Paul Weyrich, Chairman, Free Congress Foundation; Jonathan Falwell, Pastor, Thomas Road Baptist Church; Janet Parshall, Nationally-Syndicated Talk Show Host; Tom Minnery, Senior Vice President of Government and Public Policy, Focus on the Family; Rod D. Martin, Chairman, TheVanguard.Org; Chris Brown, Executive Vice President, National Federation of Republican Assemblies; Bishop Harry Jackson, Chairman, High Impact Leadership Coalition; John Hagee, National Chairman, Christians United for Israel; Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring; and Phil Burress, Chairman, Citizens for Community Values Action.

The letter concludes: "It is imperative that Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, join together, first, to recognize the threat and, second, to forge a national policy embraced by a broad coalition. We stand ready to work with you to advance a policy agenda designed to challenge radical Islam wherever it jeopardizes the interests of America and her allies."

Commenting on the letter, Mr. Bauer remarked, "In the spirit of President Truman's efforts to unite the nation against Soviet communism, it is time to forge the enduring national consensus that will be needed to sustain an unshakable, long-term commitment to prevailing over Islamist terrorism. Many conservatives are eager to work with President-elect Obama in advancing the objective of defeating Islamist aggression. I hope he will embrace this effort to build a unified policy premised on the recognition of radical Islam as a distinct, immediate, and fundamental threat to our nation."

While Obama is all for working with those who disagree with him and forging consensus, I fail to see what he could possibly learn from meeting with a gaggle of socially conservative, militantly anti-Islamic right-wing leaders such as Bauer, Hagee, Falwell, Weyrich, and Wildmon other than that he should hurry up and bomb Iran.

But more importantly, just when did the Religious Right decide that they were now experts on national security and foreign policy? 

Do you suppose that President Bush would have agreed to meet with People For, Americans United, NARAL, the NAACP, the Alliance for Justice, the ACLU, and others if we'd wanted to share our views about an issue like this ... or any other issue, for that matter?  I kind of doubt it.

If there is one thing Religious Right activists apparently can’t stand, it’s forums on the role of faith in public life that they don’t control.  As we noted earlier this week, Tony Perkins, Mike Huckabee, and Lou Engle are set to hold a press conference on Friday timed to coincide with joint appearance by Barack Obama and John McCain at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church where they are set to “discuss faith in public life, AIDS, the environment and other issues.”

Now, other Religious Right activists have announced that they are having their own conference call with reporters following the event on Saturday in order to provide the media with “an expanded perspective on how evangelicals see the relationship between faith and public policy” – by which they mean the right-wing perspective:   

Some of the nation's top evangelical leaders – Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family; Bishop Harry Jackson, Senior pastor, Hope Christian Church and Chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition; Janet Folger, President and Founder of Faith2Action and national radio host; Phil Burress, President of Citizens for Community Values, among others.

Martha Zoller, Talk Radio World Today Host will be the moderator.

WHAT: Press Conference Call to gauge reaction of conservatives and evangelicals to the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency, moderated by Pastor Rick Warren. The Forum takes place on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008 and features Senators John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill.

WHEN: Press teleconference call takes place at 10:30 EDT/7:30 PDT by calling: Toll-free: 1-888-296-6828. Passcode is: 418647# (announce name and media organization). If you would like to receive speaker bios, transcripts and/or audio versions of the interviews, please email Debbie@NewsGuests.com.

INFO: This press call event provides an opportunity for an informed response to the event at Saddleback Church, thus providing an expanded perspective on how evangelicals see the relationship between faith and public policy. The press conference call will give reporters access to alternative views on each candidate's presentation at the Saddleback Forum.

Several articles have appeared in recent months suggesting that Mike Huckabee is some sort of “new breed” of evangelical – one who is not committed only to opposing abortion and gay rights, but also cares about the environment and the poor.  And Huckabee has worked hard to play up the idea that he is nothing like traditional demagoguing Religious Right preachers such as Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell.  

As Huckabee likes to say, while he may be conservative, he’s “just not angry about it” – or, to put it another way, he drinks “a different kind of Jesus juice. To the press, this seems to be enough to qualify Huckabee as a “different kind of evangelical,” and exempts him from having to explain himself when he proclaims that we need to “amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards.” 

An example of this sort of coverage appeared on the New York Times over the weekend:

Much of the national leadership of the Christian conservative movement has turned a cold shoulder to the Republican presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee, wary of his populist approach to economic issues and his criticism of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. But that has only fired up Brett and Alex Harris.

The Harris brothers, 19-year-old evangelical authors and speakers who grew up steeped in the conservative Christian movement, are the creators of Huck’s Army, an online network that has connected 12,000 Huckabee campaign volunteers, including several hundred in Michigan, which votes Tuesday, and South Carolina, which votes Saturday.

They say they like Mr. Huckabee for the same reason many of their elders do not: “He reaches outside the normal Republican box,” Brett Harris said in an interview from his home near Portland, Ore.

The brothers fell for Mr. Huckabee last August when they saw him draw applause on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” for explaining that he believed in a Christian obligation to care for prenatal “life” and also education, health care, jobs and other aspects of “life.” “It is a new kind of evangelical conservative position,” Brett Harris said. Alex Harris added, “And we are not going to have to be embarrassed about him.”

The article noted how Huckabee’s rise in the polls has occurred “without the backing of, and even over the opposition of, the movement’s most visible leaders, many of whom have either criticized him or endorsed other candidates.”  While Religious Right powerbrokers like Tony Perkins, James Dobson, and Gary Bauer have credited Huckabee for energizing evangelical voters, all have made clear that they do not support his candidacy and seemingly have no intention of doing so.

But just because the most prominent right-wing activists are reluctant to climb aboard the Huckabee bandwagon doesn’t mean that those already on board are in any way moderates or representative of some sort of new, more moderate evangelical movement.  In fact, most of Huckabee’s backers are even more radical.

Adding to charges by MassResistance and others that Mitt Romney “bungled” gay marriage when he was governor of Massachusetts, the candidate is now getting grief about his business career. Romney, in his effort to secure support from social conservatives, has cited pornography as among the things he stands against, but some religious-right activists are questioning his anti-porn credentials.