Silent but deadly.

The religious right hasn't disappeared. They're quietly doing their nastiest work behind the scenes

They lost the presidential election. They saw the Supreme Court overturn Amendment 2. They watched while IBM and other major companies joined the trend to offer gay employees domestic-partner benefits. Surely, after the hits they took in 1996, the religious right must be in decline.

Think again.

Despite the hurdles the Christian right failed to clear over the past year, its major organizations and players remain steadfastly on track, continuing to win new converts to their cause and to hawk their political agenda, including attacks on gay rights.

"The death of the religious right has been announced numerous times since the movement got off the ground in the late 1970s," says Robert Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a group that monitors right-wing organizations. "They've probably had their obituary written more times than any other social movement. Like any other political force, they have setbacks, but that doesn't mean they're going away."

Indeed, below the surface--beyond the range of the mainstream media and under the radar even of many gay activists--the religious right continues its campaign against gay rights unabated. "We don't see the virulent antigay activism that we saw with 1994's antigay state ballot initiatives, but the religious right is stronger than ever," says Donna Red Wing, national field director for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay lobbying group. "We can pretend they're not there, but I think they're getting much more substantive."

In fact, even though the religious right is waging no battles that are currently attracting attention at the national level, its leaders are laying the groundwork for future fights. Moreover, brushfires continue to break out at the local level over such issues as school curricula, nondiscrimination ordinances, and library books. "They're avoiding the major-headline statewide issues," says Frank Whitworth, executive director of Ground Zero, a gay group in Colorado Springs, Colo. "They're picking small things, building foundations for the bigger issues. What I fear is that all of a sudden we're going to find that from a lot of little skirmishes, they've won the war."

Much of the perception that Christian conservatives are reeling from last year's election, observers say, can be traced to the defeat of Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole. Dole had been embraced by such conservative Christian leaders as Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition. However, concentrating on the results of the presidential election alone is a mistake, says William Martan, a professor of sociology at Rice University and the author of With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America.

"Because Dole didn't win, many people believed the religious right proved themselves to be impotent," says Martin. "But when they saw it was clear that Dole would not win, they spent more time on state and local elections. It wasn't a sweep, but Republicans are in control of both houses of Congress."

Moreover, Dole was never the choice of rank-and-file Christian conservatives. Many of them preferred far-right Republican candidates Pat Buchanan and Alan Keyes--in part because of Dole's equivocations on abortion early in the campaign, in part because he failed to exhibit the uniformly antigay attitude of a true believer. He alternately accepted and rejected money from gay Republicans, and he also stated in an interview that he opposed antigay discrimination. Still, after complaints from conservatives, Dole said that he opposed "the special-interest gay agenda."

If nothing else, religious right leaders have taken the line that the election results weren't as bad as they looked. "Bill Clinton may have enjoyed a triumph, but Liberalism did not," Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative think tank, wrote in "an open letter to conservatives" published as a full-page ad in "The Christian American," the newsletter of the Christian Coalition. If anything, Bauer argued, Dole failed because he was "afraid of our values."

Those values, religious right leaders have indicated, are what prevented a Democratic sweep in Congress. "Reed in particular has been saying that evangelical Christians stopped what might otherwise have been a liberal rout," says Matthew Freeman, senior vice president of People for the American Way, a lobbying group that tracks the religious right. While that claim may seem an exaggeration, the new Congress is still conservative and in some ways even more to the liking of the religious right than predecessor.

"If you look at the results they had in some Senate races, they did get some people who are going to be quite favorable to them," says Boston, pointing to Republican freshmen Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas. According to an article in the January 6 issue of Christianity Today, the religious right "is moving to concentrate its influence over federal legislation" in Congress. Among its goals are to keep at bay the Employment Non-Discrimination. Act, a bill that would ban antigay job bias and that failed by one vote in the last Congress.

But special efforts to push conservative issues could seem less noticeable, given the influence that conservative Christians already Adeld in the Republican Party. "Take a look at the agenda that the Republican Party is focused on these days," says Freeman. "Just because these issues have been taken up by the Republicans, I wouldn't give them a free ride by identifying them as Republican Party issues. These are religious right issues, front and center."

Red Wing suggests that many gay men and lesbians have become so inured to the religious right's clout in mainstream politics that it no longer registers with them: "Has the religious right become so mainstream that we don't recognize it for what it is anymore? Are the wolves looking more like sheep?"

One sign of the religious right's continuing clout in the Republican Party was the election January 17 of Colorado businessman Jim Nicholson as Republican National Committee chairman. While Nicholson, who is Catholic, has not had a high profile on gay issues, observers say he could never have won the party chairmanship had he not been acceptable to Christian conservatives.

Yet concentrating on the impact the religious right has at the national level alone is misleading. "When people look at the religious right, they tend to focus on Congress and the president, forgetting that there are 50 state governments and tens of thousands of local governments as well," Boston notes. "The religious right is interested in all of them." Indeed, perhaps especially at the local level. "They have said they are more interested in school boards than the White House," Martin adds, "because government near where people lives is more likely to affect the culture more. It's also easier to win local elections."

Without doubt the greatest opportunities for conservative Christians to score political points are around the issue of same-sex marriage. Last year 16 states passed anti-gay-marriage bills, and activists expect a slew of anti-gay marriage bills to reappear in state legislatures this year.

"They're bringing the measures, they're generating them, they're using them as an organizing and fund-raising tool," says Freeman. In January, Concerned Maine Families, a conservative group that has sponsored antigay ballot measures in the past, presented 62,000 signatures to put a measure on the 1997 ballot banning same-sex marriage or to have the legislature ban such unions outright. "We believe it has plenty of bipartisan support," Larry Lockman, vice president of the group, told the Portland Press Herald. "It's a mainstream issue."

Although such battles continue to erupt around the country, Martin believes that in the long term the religions right may begin to modify its virulent condemnation of homosexuality, if ever so slightly. "I think there has been a softening of the resistance as people recognize that we have gays in our churches, gays in our families," he 10. says. "To treat them as pariahs is a difficult position to support from scripture." However, Martin adds that antigay rhetoric "is an evergreen. It may be less green gradually, but this is not going to go away quickly. "

Reed has already tried to present a benign countenance of the religious right movement to the public. However, Bauer and other conservative leaders have stressed the need to articulate principles clearly and n pedal the goals of conservative Christians, creating a potential rift between two strains of religious right thought. Disregarding Reed's message of compassion, Reed's boss, televangelist Pat Robertson, still regularly slams gays and lesbians. In a January 7 episode of Robertson's television program The 700 Club, the Christian Coalition founder declared, "There's a natural aversion in people who are heterosexual to the, quote, homosexual lifestyle, unquote. That does not mean that you are a hater of homo--or whatever that word is. That doesn't mean that. And I'm tired of being characterized by politically correct people because we stand for the Bible."

A prime reason such antigay attacks will continue throughout the foreseeable future is that, as Freeman suggests, antigay rhetoric is a profitable mainstay of the religious right's fund-raising appeals. "It's a cash cow for them," says Boston. "It's almost replaced their bashing of public education."

Clinton's reelection allows conservative Christian groups to play up the gay "threat" even further. In a January fundraising letter, Beverly LaHaye, chairwoman of Concerned Women for America, raises the specter of ENDA's passage to plea for contributions. "ENDA was a blatant attempt to destroy our society's moral foundations," LaHaye wrote. "This bill would have forced Christian businessmen and women and other decent Americans to hire homosexuals and those with a variety of `sexual orientations,' including transvestites and pedophiles. "

In the end, Martin says, 1997 may indeed be a quiet year for the religious right--on the surface. "Without an election, without big legislative issues, this may be a year of consolidating and trying to strengthen their own numbers in local organizations," he says.

There could be some exceptions, however. One large event, at least in terms of numbers, is a planned gathering of the Promise Keepers in Washington, D.C., this fall. Critics have complained that the group has a strong antigay and antifeminist agenda. The group, which promotes creating "godly" men, swears that it has no political agenda. However, Promise Keepers was founded by Bill McCartney, a former University of Colorado football coach and a vocal supporter of Amendment 2. "It's not so much that they are overtly Political but that their message has obviOus Political implications," says Freeman. "They're certainly building an enormous infrastructure out there." In the first five years of its existence, Promise Keepers grew to have an $11-million budget and a staff of 300.

Red Wing says the success of Promise Keepers underscores the problem facing gay activists in their attempts to remain vigilant. "Maybe some people are lulled into thinking the radical right is somehow dormant because they are evolving into something much more mainstream and much more palatable," she says. "That's where they're dangerous. Their work doesn't have the edge that it used to, but I think it cuts much more deeply."

If the religious right is becoming more mainstream, it could be because they have tapped into genuine concerns among many Americans. "It's important to understand that they are concerned about real issues, however one comes down on them," Martin says. "They are a relatively permanent and important force on the American political landscape, and those who think they are going away are just wishing it."

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Leaders of the religious right aren't about to let go of gay issues which are proven as powerful fund-raising tools

The Rev. Fred Phelps

Phelps, who is pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., claims to have conducted 11,000 antigay protests--and prides himself on his "take no prisoners" attacks on what he calls "the filthy face of fag evil. " He regularly pickets the funerals of people who have died of AIDS complications and even protested the funeral of President Clinton's "evil Jezebelian mother," Virginia Kelley. Phelps suffered a legal setback January 21, when the Supreme Court let stand lower court rulings that he must limit his protests outside a Topeka church that Phelps says promotes homosexuality.

Helen Chenoweth

A second-term congresswoman from Idaho, Chenoweth had the distinction of being virtually the only politician in the state to support an unsuccessful antigay ballot measure in 1994. Chenoweth, who became involved in Christian right politics in 1989 through the Family Research Council, considers gay rights part of a vast "new world order" conspiracy, a position that endears her to the right-wing militia movement. Despite her fringe beliefs, Chenoweth won reelection last year.

Bill Horn

As the Midwest director of "The Report," an antigay newsletter, Horn organized last year's anti-gay-marriage rally in Iowa, attended by many Republican presidential candidates, and was involved in a school-board election in Des Moines that led to the defeat of an openly gay board member. He is now executive director of the Iowa Family Policy Center. "We pursue a broad family-rights agenda, " says Horn. "I no longer focus exclusively on fighting the gay agenda."

Bill McCartney

"Homosexuality is an abomination of almighty God," McCartney, then coach of the University of Colorado football team, declared at a press conference in February 1992. McCartney, who was a staunch supporter of the state's antigay Amendment 2, founded Promise Keepers, a Christian men's movement, in 1990. The group plans a rally in Washington, D.C., in October that is expected to attract thousands of men.

Pat Robertson

One of the most powerful figures of the religious right and a significant influence in the Republican Party, from which he sought the presidential nomination in 1988, Robertson presides over the Christian Coalition as well as a business empire that includes The 700 Club, Regent University, the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Family Channel, Mary Tyler Moore Entertainment, and the Ice Capades. Robertson has blamed various natural disasters on God's dissatisfaction with homosexuality and once said that Adolf Hitler was surrounded by homosexuals and satanists.

Ralph Reed

With his widespread media exposure as executive director of the Christian Coalition, Reed is the public face of the religious right. He was completing his doctorate in history at Emory University in 1989 when Pat Robertson tapped him to head the newly formed group. Reed's willingness to compromise politically and his repeated calls for moderation have marked him as a pragmatist but have also caused tensions with purists like James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family.

The Rev. Donald Wildmon

Wildmon heads the American Family Association, which is based in Tupelo, Miss. A United Methodist minister, Wildmon is a leader of the boycott against the Walt Disney Co. for its "embrace of the homosexual lifestyle and ridicule of Christianity. "He has also led boycotts against such corporate giants as Clorox, RCA, Kmart, and Holiday Inn for promoting profanity through their sponsorship of various television shows.

Andrea Sheldon

is the Washington lobbyist for the Traditional Values Coalition, a group based in Anaheim, Calif., and run by her father, the Rev. Lou Sheldon. With a $2-million budget and a network of about 31,000 churches nationwide, TVC has been active in antigay battles in California, Colorado, and Oregon. "Society must oppose homosexual behavior as we have done with alcohol and drug abuse," the group has stated.

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Christian groups formed to counter the religious right are still struggling with gay issues

When a group of Christian evangelicals founded Call to Renewal in 1996, they billed the new organization as an "alternative to the religious right." A similar group, the Interfaith Alliance, was already on the scene, formed in 1994 primarily by mainline Protestant leaders' Together the two religious groups, dedicated to a centrist political agenda, would seem to augur hope for strong new allies in the battle for gay civil rights.

But critics say that if Call to Renewal and the Interfaith Alliance are to pose a serious threat to the antigay activism of religious conservatives, they have two big hurdles to jump. The first is to expand their resources: The combined operating budget for both groups falls well short of $1 million, compared with the Christian Coalition's 1996 budget of more than $20 million. The second is to overcome their own past record of squeamishness and division on gay issues.

"The sky is the limit as far as the room these groups have to grow on gay and lesbian issues," says Meg Riley, director of the Washington, D.C., office for social justice at the Unitarian Universalist Association, a liberal religious group. "If you don't fully believe in a cause, you are not an effective advocate for it." It was a good sign when, a few days after Riley spoke with The Advocate in January, the Interfaith Alliance announced her appointment as the first openly gay person on its 16-member board of directors. "We represent a religious community that has come out strongly in support of human and civil rights for the gay community," says the Rev. Ken Brooker-Langston, director of religious outreach and education for the Interfaith Alliance. "Many of our members differ theologically about how gay and lesbian folk are treated within their communion, but we try not to get caught up in doctrinal disputes. We do have a consensus that no one should be singled out for discrimination."

At Call to Renewal, Jim Wallis, a journalist-preacher who is a founder of the group, says he and others have learned from their mistakes. In 1985 Soujourners, a religious magazine edited by Wallis, published an article by evangelist author Richard Foster describing homosexuality as a "tragic moral choice" and calling on gays and lesbians to repent. "If there is one article I could take back from three decades of publishing, that would be the one," Wallis says, adding that today he takes the case for gay rights wherever possible. During an October meeting of conservative religious activists in Colorado Springs, Colo., the nation's epicenter of organized antigay activity, Wallis told a large audience that blaming gay men and lesbians for the breakdown of the family is "stupid." "Not a single person in the room objected when I said that it's ridiculous to blame gays and lesbians for heterosexual dysfunction," he says. "It may not seem like a big concession to gay activists, but I think it was a major breakthrough. What's important is not the stance anyone takes on a particular issue but that we open up a middle ground for these kinds of conversations."