Religious Right Watch

Who will be our Pastor-President from "the Party That Rove Built?"

Andrew Sullivan live-blogged the GOP presidential candidate debate on November 28. He had some interesting observations.

About the ultra-religionist Republican Party that Karl Rove helped bring about:

I'm not a fiscal liberal, or a supporter of the death penalty, or someone who believes that a candidacy for the presidency of the United States should be based on someone's religious faith. So Huckabee is not for me. But he is easily the most appealing candidate for the current big-spending, evangelical, Southern Republican party. I don't find his religious schtick in any way appealing. It's glib in one area where glibness really is inappropriate. To say something like "Jesus was far too smart to seek public office" may have a superficial appeal, but it is also a cheapening of Jesus' radical injunction to forswear worldly power and wealth. To use such a cheap line to score a laugh in a political debate is not something I find particularly admirable.
.....
[Y]ou can see why Huckabee is rising.... [H]e does have the most important qualification of anyone on stage: ["]A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.["]

Think of tonight as Rove's Frankenstein moment.

Sullivan rightly referred to the GOP as "a religiously-based organization," and pointed out that many in the GOP "believe that religion should define public institutions, including the military."

Here is a summary of what he feels "Bush and Rove have achieved"

the suspension of secular politics in the Republican party, and, by inference, the country as a whole. This has become, thanks to Bush and Rove, a religious contest. And that's why, in today's GOP, Huckabee is the proper leader. It's a church; and he's a minister. It's a match made in heaven.

More US evangelicals care about AIDS now that it kills straight people

Reuters' Jill Serjeant reports that Kay Warren, wife of conservative evangelical mega-church pastor Rick Warren, cares about AIDS after realizing that it wasn't just a gay disease . . . . Apparently, if it had been just a gay disease, it wouldn't be worth combating.

The Warrens say the question should be not "How did you get sick?" but "What can I do? How can I help you?"

Presumably, this is meant to sound charitable. It does...from a certain point of view.

AIDS was first mentioned by the Center for Disease Control in 1981. That was 26 years ago. Since then, 25,000,000 people have died from the complications of AIDS.

Because AIDS has been killing mostly straight people for many years, more American evangelicals seem interested in caring about something that many researchers, medical field workers, activists, biologists, academics, politicians and others have been raising the alarm about for decades.

So, the Warrens want to help. Is this welcome news? Absolutely! Is it impressive news? No.

"National Pick On Lesbians Day" man elected to school board in MN; superintendent resigns

From a a high school classmate of mine comes this article concerning the resignation of Tom Westerhaus, the schools superintendent of Prior Lake, Minnesota, following the election to the school board there of a disciplined former employee, Chris Lind:

In June, with Westerhaus' recommendation, the Prior Lake-Savage school board fired Lind, who worked as a campus supervisor at Prior Lake High School. Lind, a devout Christian, had been at the high school for four years. In that time, he had developed a reputation among students as an adult willing to befriend them and mentor them in their faith.

The district said it fired Lind for "job performance and insubordination" after receiving complaints about his talking to students on campus about their sexual orientation and telling a student that the day was "National Pick On Lesbians Day." The district also warned him about maintaining appropriate boundaries with students and the need to separate the role of supervisor of students from the role of friend.

Additional perspective via a conservative Christian blog.

Further reporting here provides additional background.

It seems to me that Mr. Lind almost certainly behaved in an unprofessional or immature manner in his previous position. Apparently it has been argued (not not confirmed perhaps) that Mr. Lind was offered direction on appropriate boundaries. Boundaries between students and staff (or employees and managers for that matter) are vital to a proper learning (or work) environment. I think the comments of the local minister in support of Mr. Lind are ill-considered at best. Being a "nice guy" to some students (probably not to gay ones) and being willing to "mentor" students in their faith--activities that have a time and a place that are not public school time or a public school campus--hardly seem like an over-arching reasons for Mr. Lind to have been retained, as his supporters seem to imply that they were. Being a nice guy to those who seem willing to share his opinions--in a school board where many voters clearly do--has helped him get elected, no doubt. It does not change that simple fact that he demonstrated a lack of wisdom at best--insubordination at worst. What is more, the voters decided that that was okay. I don't see that Lind has much of a legal case at all--he was an employee at will; it was not a "right to work" situation, given the evidence at hand. However, he may be vindicative enough to sue anyway, just to cost others money.

It seems to me that all of this could have been avoided if Lind had done his politicking and proselytizing with students in the private sphere: grab a root beer at McDonald's after school and talk about it there, or invite a student to church.

Clearly many voters of this district care more about ideological purity and religious matter than professionalism, even in the public sphere, even in the realms of public administration and education.

Karl Marx would be very comfortable with that.

"Let us base our unity on Jesus Christ as Lord"

From Pastor Dan at Street Prophets: blogger Bene Diction caught this story of a North Carolina church being booted out of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) for welcoming people who happened to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

Bene Diction also in a comment takes a strong stand for a progressive understanding of homosexulaity that is orthodox within the confines of an evangelical Protestantism that neither rejects real-world observation nor fetishizes particular knee-jerk readings of the bible tantamount to commiting a heresy of idolizing it:

The US is unique[ly] both facinated and repelled by sexuality, in a way few countries are.
Most western countries don’t have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy anymore.

Homosexuality is not a disease.
Being gay is not a sin.
Separating us into parts, spiritual, mental, flesh makes it easier for groups such as Exodus International to operate with impunity.
.....
Jesus didn’t talk about homosexuality as we know and understand it today.
He talked about the deeper human issues, relationship, faithfulness, honour, honesty, love.
He reserved his admonitions for the same people Paul did, those that promote the power imbalance of sexual slavery and degredation of human beings.

I do not see a committed homosexual relationship as sinful.
I do not see my GLBT friends as any more broken than I am.
They are not suffering a disease that needs a cure.
I suspect we disagree.
While historically European and western countries didn’t give GLBT relationships legal standing, they existed, and they existed within the church. They continue to exist.

What a terrible terrible thing we do when we insist GLBT stop being who they are.

Gutsy Orthodox blog -- theological sophistication + justice and rights

The blog JN1034 is gutsy indeed. And impressive.

Within the categories and theology of Orthodoxy, JN1034 offers a compelling defense of human rights, and is particularly concerned with stopping the "global persecution against gays in the Orthodox Church," as well as supporting ecological responsibility.

What is particularly striking about this blog, however, is its theological sophistication. It takes as its inspiration the theology of théosis based in some part on St. John's Gospel, chapter 10, verse 34.

The people behind this blog are, as it were, no dopes! As a friend of mine who is an Episcopal priest pointed out: they aren't cranks.

Indeed. They are informed and--for now at least--determined.

Religious right leaders and the politics of endorsements

Various major players in the religious right movement are endorsing different Republican candidates for President. What does this mean? Is it a sign of disunity within the religious right? Not necessarily. Robertson has endorsed Giuliani, but many Christian conservatives seem to have an "anybody but Giuliani" mindset.

The unity that matters ultimately is the unity of the voting booth. If different religious right leaders endorse different candidates now, it does not mean that they will not all rally around and campaign for the eventual Republican nominee.

Former Republican mayor of New York City, Rudolf Giuliani, who is pro-choice and as mayor supported limited civil rights for gay Americans to the extent that he signed a bill to extent City domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples, has been endorsed for president by televangelist Pat Robertson, a minister and businessman who was a major figure in the religion right. He still has influence, but this endorsement might actually weaken that influence. We'll see. Robertson was the founder of the now-defunct Christian Coalition, and was himself a presidential candidate in 1998 when he demonstrated the power of the religion right by placing second in the Iowa caucuses, beating then Vice President George H. W. Bush, who eventually won the party's nomination.

Senator John McCain of Arizona has been endorsed by Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, one of the most vocally anti-choice and anti-gay politicians in the US. The New York Times said this was an attempt to undercut the notion that Giuliani is best positioned to beat the presumed Democratic nominee Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has been endorsed by Paul Weyrich, who is considered one of the founders of the religious right movement, started the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation in 1973 (with money from Joseph Coors of Coors beer and Richard Mellon-Scaife, an heir of the Carnegie-Mellon fortune), and helped Jerry Falwell start the Moral Majority in 1979--which was an important organization in the early days of the religious right. (Another Weyrich organization, the Free Congress Foundation, remains active.)

Mitt Romney is a Mormon, however, and many evangelical Christistian consider Mormonism to be a cult.

James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family and a strident opponent of reproductive rights and civil rights for gay Americans, has yet to endorse, but has ruled out Giuliani as an option.

Former Republican governor of Arkansas and Southern Baptist Minister Mike Huckabee has not garnered as many press-worthy endorsements from nationally promenient members of the religious right. Huckabee is a far right conservative who, as does former candidate Sam Brownback, also believes that the creation myth is a scientifically valid theory.