Strange Bedfellows Religion and politics are becoming too-easy partners in today’s America By Dennis Crews October 1984 — On my desk right now there is a slick, four-color magazine called the Presidential Biblical Scoreboard. Forty pages long, it attempts to place before readers the issues its editors think are morally the most important in the coming election. The magazine undertakes the arcane task of explaining just who stands for what among the current crop of political candidates. The editorial box makes the objective clear: “Politics is the business of deciding who gets what, when and where. Christians dare not leave such vital business to unbelievers…By using our Scoreboard and voting for candidates who support Judeo-Christian values, you will be doing your Christian duty in helping reclaim America for God.” A new strain of religious zealotry seems to have sprung from the ashes of an earlier and darker age in Western civilization. Call it a spiritual awakening or call it blind fanaticism, but the closer you look the harder it is to tell whether the “me generation” has finally gotten religion, or Christianity has been infected by the blind ambition of the times. Whichever way one views it, the new movement has stirred up the largest election-year hornet’s nest in recent memory. No issue in America today is more likely to touch off political fireworks than just where the line separating church and state should fall – and that’s precisely where the battle zone is today. Abortion, arms control, the federal deficit, school busing and a host of other domestic and foreign policy issues have come under recent and close scrutiny by the self-appointed watchdogs of American morality. Claiming their prerogatives on no less than the authority of Heaven, their agenda includes not only enacting legislation to enforce righteousness in the land, but also purging the political system of every player whose views, practices and voting record do not square with their own brand of religious fundamentalism. To help its readers, or more likely to secure the readers’ help in accomplishing this, the Presidential Biblical Scoreboard contains complex tables listing both House and Senate incumbents and their challengers, along with their voting records on a mixed bag of issues ranging from capital punishment and nuclear weapons to the equal rights amendment and school prayer. Paul Weyrich, a former journalist with a penchant for right-wing causes, is considered by many to be the architect behind the current preachers-into-politics movement. He has been instrumental in organizing a multitude of separate religious and political forces into a united, comprehensive network of foundations and political action committees (PACs). Tapping the wealth and talent of other like-minded individuals, such as beer magnate Joseph Coors and direct-mail entrepreneur Richard Viguerie, Weyrich’s organizations have pumped unprecedented amounts of money and support into the campaigns and lobbying efforts of conservative candidates and causes. But the battle plan goes far beyond merely holding up the hands of the righteous. There is work to be done down in the trenches – dirty work that betrays a darker side of this modern-day morality play. Before the good guys can really consolidate their power in government, all the villains must be routed. Since the United States is a democratic society that embraces a plurality of religious and political opinions, this is far from a simple task. But all is fair in love and war, and the warriors of the new right have found the weapon that works best for them. It is the political action committee.
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