Right-wing strong-arming.

The religious right is facing serious problems at the national level but winning major battles on the state level.

In March 1998, Paul Weyrich, the leading right-wing figure in Washington, D.C., convened a secret meeting of the religious and political right, where some religious right leaders expressed their frustration with the Republican leadership. Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council told party leaders that "there is virtually nothing to show for an eighteen-year commitment." As a result of the discontent, the group decided to form an "independent political force" that would speak with one voice and support one presidential candidate. It also planned to work on the state and local level and selected Weyrich as the group's chair.

At another meeting with religious right leaders on May 8 at the Library of Congress, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and other Republicans created a new House task force called the Values Action Team, headed by Republican Joseph R. Pitts of Pennsylvania, to coordinate their political program with about twenty right-wing groups. Among those groups are the Family Research Council, the Christian Coalition, the National Right to Life Committee, the Home School Legal Defense Association, and the Southern Baptist Convention.

Meanwhile, the U.S. News and World Report for May 4 featured James Dobson as the most powerful and popular rightwing leader in the United States, claiming he has a far "greater reach than either Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson at the height of their appeal." Among Dobson's closest allies in Congress are Republican Representatives Steve Largent of Oklahoma and James Talent of Missouri. Dobson has threatened to leave the Republican Party unless it meets his specific demands, despite the many gifts the party has given the far right.

"As an only child, Dobson was `spoiled rotten,'" recalls an old friend in U.S. News and World Report. "He `has a reputation as an intimidating micromanager. No one, no matter how long or loyal their service, is exempt from confrontational scrutiny.'" The magazine goes on to say that, in 1982, Dobson created "an advocacy group, the Family Research Council. But it was purposely designed to keep him one step removed from direct political involvement" so as not to jeopardize his tax-exempt Focus on the Family organization. Gary Bauer "now runs that group, and he is supposed to be the partisan lightning rod."

Dobson is faced with the choice of opposing the GOP leadership or intervening "directly in Republican primaries." However, according to U.S. News and Worm Report, "this would require, in Dobson's words, `periodic leaves of absence' to protect his organization's non-profit status." Dobson has a certain amount of arrogance in assuming that, if he abandons Republicans in the next election, he will be followed by his extensive radio audience.

With an audience estimated at five million, Dobson scares Republicans. But some business leaders in the GOP have had second thoughts about the demand of far-right Christians, including the Catholic bishops, for a Freedom from Religious Persecution Act, which would punish foreign governments with economic retaliation. The business leaders do not want to have to choose between morality and trade.

There is also a potential contradiction between big business and at least some factions of the religious right. Gary Bauer, who works closely with Dobson, has organized a "Campaign for Working Families," which wants better wages and opposes privatization of Social Security. The July/August 1998 issue of Mother Jones ran a feature story on Bauer and this problem.

In spite of the pressures of the religious right wing on House Republicans and on an issue not affecting big business, the Republican leadership could not deliver a two-thirds vote for the public school prayer amendment sponsored by Representatives Ernest Istook of Oklahoma and Henry Hyde of Illinois. In 1971, a comparable amendment received 59.7 percent of the vote but, in 1998, only 52.4 percent were in favor, despite a massive effort by the Christian Coalition and the Republican leadership.

In contrast, at the state level the right wing has had considerable success. In Wisconsin, a new state law sponsored by anti-abortion groups was adopted defining a child as covering the entire period from fertilization to birth and threatening life imprisonment for physicians who cause the death of a "living child." In Kansas, the religious right seized control of the Republican Party, including the state legislature. Restrictive abortion legislation was adopted and, contrary to expectations, the state's moderate Republican governor, Bill Graves, signed it into law. In an unusual move, Graves will be opposed in the general election by the state Republican Party chair, David Miller, who is a committed far-right candidate.

However, Kansas right-wing Republicans submitted petitions with more than 20,000 signatures to form the Kansas Taxpayers Party because, they said, it was the only true pro-life party. This means that, if Graves triumphs in the primary, the far-right candidate will have another chance through the Taxpayers Party in the general election, or it will kill the moderate Republican's chance of reelection.

If so, that would be in keeping with James Dobson's statement last April, when he wrote, "I believe a Republican meltdown is preferable to... the present betrayal of the moral agenda." He said he voted for the Taxpayers Party candidate instead of Robert Dole in the 1998 presidential election. Dobson, however, is not a great political seer. In an April Nebraska primary, his endorsed candidate for governor came in third in a state that is notoriously conservative.

On a different note, Pat Robertson is apparently promoting as a presidential candidate Senator John Ashcroft of Missouri, who gave this year's commencement address at Robertson's Regent University in Virginia. Ashcroft is a serious presidential contender. His committee paid $12,000 to Ralph Reed's Atlanta-based firm, Century Strategies, in the first quarter of 1998 and another $6,000 to the Purser Company, an Alexandria, Virginia, direct-mail firm which has also worked for the Christian Coalition. The committee's records also show receipt of $10,000 from Pat Robertson. Since 1977, Ashcroft has made several visits to Iowa, where the first presidential caucus will be held, as well as to other important primary states.

In other news, the Promise Keepers are back. In April, PK recalled its national staff, after laying off its entire staff of 345 in March. It planned nineteen stadium and arena events through October. About 30,000 men attended a stadium rally in Columbia, Missouri, June 19-20. Columbia is the site of the University of Missouri football stadium and almost the center of the state, so the crowd came from all over Missouri.

Finally, a relatively new long-distance phone company, started in 1990, is devoted to funding right-wing organizations. Known as Amerivision-LifeLine, the company says that, for every $20 its subscribers spend on long-distance calls, it gives $2 to organizations that fit its definition of morality. Among them are Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice, Randall Terry's Operation Rescue and his syndicated radio show Randall Terry Live, the Trinity Broadcasting television program This Week in Bible Prophecy, the Rutherford Institute, the Republican Victory Fund, and at least ten state anti-abortion groups. The phone company states that it gave over $375,000 a month--or $4.5 million a year--to a select group of thirty organizations but supports "over 500 different right-to-life groups nationwide." It also claims that this year it "will give over $15 million to conservatives who are fighting Goals 2000, outcome-based education, the government's takeover of education, and much more."

In so doing, the phone company attacks AT&T, MCI, and Sprint for supporting groups like the National Organization for Women and spending "thousands of dollars to help reelect some of the most liberal congressmen." Meanwhile, it claims to save its subscribers 4 to 8 percent off AT&T's standard long-distance rates; however, there are other phone companies that charge much less than this one. It also uses two of the most virulent right-wing groups--the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family--as endorsers.

John M. Swomley is professor emeritus of social ethics at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri.