Dobson boosts Bush as Fla. elections near. (People & Events).

Focus on the Family founder Dr. James C. Dobson gave Jeb Bush some valuable air time July 22, devoting a half-hour broadcast to a one-on-one interview with the Florida governor, who is up for reelection this year.

The ostensible topics of the radio interview were Bush's reading initiative and his private school voucher program, two initiatives that Dobson supports. Bush's reelection effort was not discussed, but the interview, which consisted of a series of softball questions from Dobson, gave Bush valuable national exposure--and an implicit endorsement--shortly before the Florida primary and upcoming general election. The president's brother is expected to face a close race in November.

2002 marks the 25th anniversary of Focus on the Family, and Dobson has been celebrating in part by becoming more political. In the past few years, the leader of the tax-exempt Religious Right powerhouse has personally endorsed several Republican candidates for public office. (Federal tax law permits religious leaders to endorse candidates as long as their tax-exempt ministries are not involved.)

Most recently, Dobson gave his blessing to Tony Perkins, a Republican seeking a U.S. Senate seat from Louisiana. Perkins, currently a member of the state House of Representatives, hopes to make his way into a runoff with incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu in November. In an open letter, Dobson praised Perkins for his conservative views and for championing "covenant" marriage and anti-abortion legislation while in the statehouse.

"Not only will he vote to protect marriage and the unborn, he will advocate for those issues," Dobson wrote.

Perkins is jockeying with two GOP rivals--U.S. Rep. John Cooksey and former New Orleans City Council member Suzanne Haik Terrell. Under Louisiana's election laws, all of the candidates will compete in an "open primary" on Nov. 5. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the two top vote-getters will face each other in a runoff election Dec. 7.

The Washington Times reported in August that national GOP leaders are backing Terrell but that Religious Right activists in the state favor Perkins and have vowed to sit out the runoff if he does not make it in.

In other news about the Religious Right:

* Former Family Research Council head and failed presidential candidate Gary Bauer has teamed up with a right-wing rabbi to form a new pro-Israel organization called the American Alliance of Jews and Christians.

Joining Bauer in the endeavor is Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradition, a group based in Washington state that pushes right-wing causes. The Alliance intends to advocate pro-Israel policies, but Bauer said he hopes it will eventually expand its focus.

"I believe this new project will help ensure the alliance of America and Israel while also building a movement of Jews and Christians for traditional values," Bauer said.

The Alliance has produced a short booklet titled Enemies or Allies?: Why American Jews Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Conservative Christians. Its advisory board includes TV preachers Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as well as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship.

* U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) has converted to Roman Catholicism, marking another high-profile conversion for a controversial Catholic priest.

The Rev. John McCloskey, who runs the Catholic Information Center in downtown Washington, D.C., was instrumental in Brownback's conversion. Brownback, an evangelical who was elected in 1996 with strong support from the Religious Right, had been a United Methodist.

Slate reported Aug. 9 that McCloskey is a traditionalist Catholic and member of Opus Del, a secretive group of lay Catholics who hold ultra-conservative views. McCloskey's goal, according to Slate, is to purge the church of liberals.

"A liberal Catholic is oxymoronic," he has said. "The definition of a person who disagrees with what the Catholic Church is teaching is called a Protestant."

McCloskey, who previously oversaw the conversion of journalist Robert Novak to Catholicism, worked with U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) to win over Brownback. Santorum, a fan of Opus Del, asserted recently that several U.S. senators have been "cowed into silence" and won't talk about God or their faith. U.S. culture and media, he said, "beat us up continuously to drive God out of the public square."

* An affiliate of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church has been placing full-page ads in newspapers nationwide announcing that the founders of several world religions met in the "spirit world" recently to pledge loyalty to Moon.

According to the account by the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, Jesus Christ, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad and several Hindu leaders attended the "spirit world" conference. Jesus was accompanied by Saint Peter, Saint Paul, John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Wesley, Saint Augustine, Jonathan Edwards and other past Christian leaders, all of whom hailed Moon as the messiah and savior of mankind.

Muhammad, according to the report, brought along several early Muslim leaders, among them Abu Bakr, the first caliph. Muhammad is reported as saying, "Since I, Muhammad, encountered the Unification Principle and met the Rev. Sun. Myung Moon, my worldview has changed. I am now confident in everything. Everything seems new to me now. I am filled with optimism and hope.... I cry out, `Victory for God! Victory for Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the True Parent, Messiah and Savior!'"

Four dead communist leaders attended the conference--Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Deng Xiao Ping. All renounced communism and pledged to follow Moon, who has long sought to unite the religious and political worlds under his leadership.

According to the report, Stalin was especially enthusiastic, telling his fellow communists, "Please receive the will of Rev. Moon completely; open your minds and build churches for the worship of God and hold services. Rev. Moon reflects the image of God, even though he is a man.... His thought is messianic, especially for Communist countries. You must receive his ideology of peace immediately."

Aside from the newspaper ads, the Family Federation put a detailed report about the "spirit conference" on its website (www.familyfed.org) under the title "A Cloud of Witnesses." The report was up throughout July but abruptly disappeared in August.