
The Art of Politics
Some "Politically Incorrect" Ideas
By Judy Osborne
Unless a really cool party or some other compelling event happens to upset
my routine, most nights I’m brushing my teeth when “Politically Incorrect”
lights up my TV screen. The water keeps right on running while host Bill
Maher does his sappy monologue, but I pay attention when Maher introduces
his four guests.
My nightly challenge is to figure out, before the dialog begins, which one
of the guests is speaking for the religious right. There’s always one. You
know instantly which it is the moment the panel starts arguing -- it’s the
one who skillfully finds ways to inject religious-right talking points
into the discussion.
The group almost always begins with an obligatory analysis of Monica
Lewinski and the Prez, after which topics drift off into other salacious
stuff like ex-gay ministries, Southern Baptist ideas about women’s roles,
transsexuals in the workplace, protecting our kid’s morals via censorship,
sometimes even sinking so low as to make references to pedophiles,
transvestites and kleptomaniacs. After all, the show is called
"Politically Incorrect".
Picking the winners and losers each night depends, I suspect, on each
viewer’s prejudice. I certainly can’t keep an impartial score. It’s simply
worth observing this little chunk of a saturation campaign that’s going on
in the media. Somebody who’s very well prepared shows up every night for a
dinky little late-night talk show to present the viewpoint of the
fundamentalist right.
The fun part is watching the representative try to struggle with the
program’s humor. Humor just isn’t the right’s strong suit. That’s too bad,
because a bunch of really zany stuff is going on in the religious right’s
campaign to make this a Christian nation. A while ago, Southern Baptists
decided to boycott Disney because Ellen came out as a lesbian in a show
aired on Disney-owned ABC-TV and because Disney offers domestic-partner
benefits. This year the Southern Baptists stayed on their roll by
proclaiming that “wives should submit graciously” to their husband’s
“servant leadership.” Not to be outdone, Pat Robertson of the Christian
Coalition warned the city of Orlando that tolerance of homosexuality, as
represented by Gay Days at Disney World, will bring “terrorist bombs,
it’ll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor” to the hapless
city.
The Senate Majority Leader compared gays to alcoholics and
kleptomaniacs, prompting the host at a fund-raiser put on by a gay
couple to begin his introduction of President Clinton by saying “Mr.
President, here’s your watch back” (everybody got the joke except the
President). The House Majority leader chimed in by quoting the Bible.
“Neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves shall inherit the Kingdom of God,” he thundered,
neglecting to mention other scriptures that require stubborn and
rebellious sons to be stoned to death and make women responsible for all
sin.
James Dobson of Focus On the Family called on Congress to ignore a
decision of the Supreme Court. Christian ministries seem to be springing
up all over the place purporting to “cure” homosexuals, a treatment regime
which the American Psychological Association has roundly discredited. A
vote remains stalled which would confirm a highly-regarded gay
philanthropist as Ambassador to Luxembourg, not exactly a pivotal nation
in our foreign-policy plan. The Boy Scouts of America have ordered
Unitarian Universalists to stop giving religious medals to their Boy
Scouts because the Unitarians refuse to condemn gays.
And that’s just the fun stuff. Christian right leadership actually
thinks it has captured the Republican party. Maybe it has. James Dobson
wrote several very nasty notes to Republican legislators threatening to
pull out the support of his own five million Christian conservatives plus
a vast number of supporters from other organizations, a strategy which
would leave a number of Republican legislators without any hope of
gathering a majority of voters in their districts.
Newt Gingrich was frightened enough by Dobson’s threat to make a number of
promises to Dobson and actually deliver on them. Among these, Dobson
demanded a House vote before November’s election for the so-called
“Religious Freedom” Amendment. By allowing a majority vote to determine
religious issues, the Amendment would have the effect of denying religious
freedom to everybody except Christians. Gingrich delivered the vote and
actually managed to get a bare majority in favor of it, though not the two
thirds required to amend the Constitution. Dobson took names and withdrew
his support from those who didn’t vote his way. He intends, according to
reports, to use Focus On the Family’s vast network of publications and
broadcast outlets to smear as “anti-religious” all those legislators still
believe in religious freedom. Dobson, incidentally, acknowledges that one
of his political goals is to write into law his understanding of the Ten
Commandments.
Oklahoma Congressman Steve Largent (yes, he is the former Seahawk hero)
succeeded in micromanaging the District of Columbia with an amendment to
an appropriations bill which prevents unmarried couples from adopting
children, prohibits spending Federal or local funds for needle exchange,
and weakens the already-poor schools with a voucher program. Meanwhile,
the Texas State Board of Education seems poised to achieve an
eight-to-seven majority of Christian conservatives voting together. The
conservatives plan to mandate classroom prayers, require schools to teach
creationism, end AIDS and sexuality instruction, establish a state-funded
voucher program, and post the Ten Commandments in school buildings all
over Texas.
Although the Christian right and the rest of society automatically lump
transgender issues together with gay issues whenever they’re thinking
about oppressive legislation, transgendered people have been getting
special attention from the right whenever the situation warrants. Gary
Bauer, head of the Family Research Council, picked on transsexuals in a
recent letter attacking all sexual minorities. Bauer called for the defeat
of legislators “supporting a bill allowing the re-issue of birth
certificates for persons with a sex change operation.” In Washington state
recently, transgendered woman Sheila Richardson was kicked out of her
county Republican party after two years of service because she personally
supported a civil-rights initiative for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and
transgendered people. Log Cabin Republicans (a major gay political
organization) was banned from the Texas Republican conference this year.
The conference spokesperson explained the banishment by saying “we don’t
allow pedophiles, transvestites or crossdressers either.”
Not everything is bad or smacking of negativity. A straight, 13-year-old
Life Scout (one step below Eagle, the highest) from Petaluma, California,
is circulating petitions, holding press conferences, writing politicians
and hounding reporters in an effort to get the Boy Scouts to stop
discriminating against gays. He’s saying that “what they are teaching
people is to discriminate instead of loving everyone and giving everyone
the same chances.” The Girl Scouts continue to accept members of all
faiths, not just Christians, even though that decision prompted one of
Dobson’s publications to accuse the Girl Scouts of “pushing a philosophy .
. . that includes humanism and radical feminism.” The National Federation
of Independent Businesses actually has endorsed eight Democrats for seats
in the House. An amendment to overturn President Clinton’s executive order
banning discrimination against gays was defeated in the
Republican-controlled House. And Representative Ernest Istook (R-OK),
chief sponsor of Dobson’s “Religious Freedom” Amendment, was awarded a
10-inch bronze facsimile of a horse’s rear end by People for the American
Way.
Still, Dobson, Bauer, and Robertson are placing considerable pressure on
Republican politicians to advance the Christian right’s social movement
through legislation. They’re concentrating on anti-gay issues, abortion,
prayer and posting the Ten Commandments in schools, government subsidies
to religious schools, defunding safe sex education and condom
distribution, defunding the Department of Education, and defunding the
National Endowment for the Arts. Dobson wrote a letter last February to
Rep. Tom Coburn and all the other Republicans in Congress, stressing his
concerns “and the concerns of millions of evangelical Christians.” Dobson
concluded ominously, “this is late February . . . in the final year of the
105th Congress, and there is very little to show for the confidence placed
in Republicans by the 43 percent of its constituency who gave them power
in 1994. And the clock is ticking.”
There’s so much more, but I run on too long.
The 105th Congress hasn’t done much of anything this year,
Christian-mandated or otherwise, though the verbal attack against gays,
lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people certainly has escalated. Some
of the fundamentalist’s demands have been finding their way through the
legislative process, and prominent Republicans seem to be testing the
water by making increasingly intolerant comments while keeping an eye on
the polls for signs of a backlash. Starr’s report has interrupted that
procedure, but we can expect more hateful rhetoric to be spewed out before
election day in November. A strong showing by Republicans this fall, in
spite all this stridency, would give the party a green light to satisfy
the demands of this large Christian right constituency of theirs, while a
Democratic victory would erode the Christian right’s influence over the
Republican Party.
This November’s election holds the key to whether or not the Christian
fundamentalist social movement can succeed. Will the excesses of words and
deeds from the right cause a backlash from voters, as Republicans fear? Or
will all those words and deeds have little or no effect, relieving the
Republican leadership from having to tiptoe so carefully around Dobson’s,
Robertson’s and Bauer’s demands? How will the Clinton/Lewinski wild card
alter the odds? Will the stock market and the economy crash, causing pain
and a search for scapegoats? Which party will capture governor’s mansions
and state legislatures in this and the next couple of elections, giving
that party the privilege of drawing new legislative-district boundaries
after the millennium census?
Apathy is a tool that Christian fundamentalist leaders cherish.
Government has become so inept, so negative, so unresponsive to anyone
other than big campaign contributors and organizations able to deliver
huge blocs of voters, that lots of citizens just aren’t voting any more.
Christian Coalition National Field Director Guy Rodgers celebrated this
tendency as long ago as 1992 by stating “in low turnout elections . . .
the percentage of those who determine who wins can be as low as 6 or 7
percent . . . Is this sinking in? We don’t have to worry about convincing
a majority of Americans to agree with us.” In fundamentalist churches all
over the country, leaders are making a tremendous effort to convince their
flock to come out and vote for certain candidates and issues on election
day.
A low-turnout election, which already has been predicted this fall,
magnifies their power. On the other hand, good news comes from none
other than Newt, who proclaimed recently that “in 1996 fewer than 12,000
votes spread across just ten congressional districts gave the Republican
Party control of Congress!” It won’t take too many of us to make a change.
Gay Congressman Barney Frank says it well -- we each can “have a
significant impact because so many others ignore the process.”
Your comments, in support or in disagreement, will be gratefully
received -- heyjude@eskimo.com
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