The Democratic Party strategy for defending the right to choose, gay marriage, and stopping the moves toward theocracy
By RJ Schinner, 11/14/06
“YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.”
The driving force in the Bush administration’s domestic agenda, and a
key influence on what is increasingly a crusade on the world, is a
Christian fundamentalist program which aims to ban the right to
abortion (and birth control); deny gays basic legal rights; forces the
Bible and creationism into public schools; suppress basic scientific
facts; replaces social welfare programs with “faith-based” initiatives;
prevents stem cell research in the name of (ironically) “preserving
life”; and establishes a theocracy as the law of the land. The Bush
administration and the Republican Congress have moved far and fast
forward in implementing this agenda, albeit in an echeloned way. Open
theocrats have been appointed to the federal judiciary, including
Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court. Government agencies are filled
with fundamentalists who make decisions about health, global warming,
education, and women’s reproductive rights based on religious
doctrine. The Republican Party, now dominated by the religious right,
has worked to legislate bigotry and patriarchy. The White House holds
a weekly conference call with key leaders of the Christian
fundamentalist movement, to talk policy and to bless the administration.
Recent exposure of the hypocrisy of some leaders of the religious Right
has not caused their defeat. In fact, the Foley scandal has ignited
calls to purge gays from the Republican Party, and news of Ted
Haggard’s visits to a male prostitute have been taken as a means to
confess his sins and preach the importance of the traditional family.
The drive toward establishing a theocracy is determined, relentless,
and deeply entrenched in the halls of power. Furthermore, it has built
up a base of millions of followers kept in a self-contained world (see
the movie Jesus Camp, for example), and who are appealed to for votes
on the basis of bigotry and intolerance.
Given the nightmare it would be to live under a theocracy, and the
relentlessness of those who want to implement one, there is no room for
compromise or conciliation. This theocratic program must be met head
on, its twisted morality and political agenda repudiated, and its
policies reversed.[1]
In this past election, the Democratic Party leadership applied a
different strategy: If you can’t (or don’t want) to beat ’em, join
’em. In its choices for candidates and in what issues it decided to
fight on, the Democratic Party leadership completely ceded ground to
the religious Right.
Starting with the candidates, Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel,
respective heads of the Democratic Senate and House campaigns, opted
for an electoral strategy of defeating theocratic far right-wing
Republicans with “lite” Democratic imitations. Pennsylvania provides a
telling example, where Sen. Rick Santorum, an anti-choice, virulently
anti-gay, and downright lunatic theocrat was the incumbant. Bob Casey,
Jr., also anti-choice (“I am and have always been pro-life”), anti-gay
marriage, and anti-stem cell research, has now replaced Santorum.[2]
In Virginia, open racist Republican Sen. George Allen, who kept a noose
on his desk, was replaced with Democrat Jim Webb, who opposes
affirmative action and named his son after Confederate General Robert
E. Lee. (Perhaps Allen gave Webb the noose on his desk as a
congratulation gift.) Democrat Harold Ford, Jr., who lost the Senate
race in Tennessee, responded to attack ads from his opponent accusing
him of supporting gay marriage with the following: “I do not support
the decision today reached by the New Jersey Supreme Court regarding
gay marriage. I oppose gay marriage, and have voted twice in Congress
to amend the United States Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage.
This November there’s a referendum on the Tennessee ballot to ban
same-sex marriage – I am voting for it.”
In the House, 9 of the new Democrats elected will be joining the Blue
Dog caucus, a socially conservative wing of the Democratic Party. Rahm
Emanuel went out of his way to recruit right-wing candidates to run in
conservative districts. This included Heath Shuler in North Carolina
who said “I’m pro-life and I’m part of the Democratic Party, so I hope
it’s part of the platform”, as well as anti-choice Democrats-elect like
Brad Ellsworth in Indiana and Mike Weaver in Kentucky.
And when 8 states had ballot initiatives banning gay marriage (7 of
which passed), where were the voices from the Democratic Party
condemning the bigotry and intolerance emanating from the Republican
Party? When asked about gay marriage on 60 Minutes in October, Nancy
Pelosi said “Well, that’s an issue that is not an issue that we’re
fighting about here.”
And what about the right to abortion? Hillary Clinton calls abortion a
“sad, even tragic choice”, and urges “common ground” with anti-choice
advocates. Howard Dean argues, “I have long believed that we ought to
make a home for pro-life Democrats.” And why did the leadership of the
Democratic Party stay out of the important battle in South Dakota to
overturn the most extreme of abortion bans?
All this is of course justified by the notion that we have to stay
silent about the “culture war” issues in order to garner votes from
moderate and Christian fundamentalist voters. Indeed, Howard Dean
bragged about how the Democrats got one third of the Christian
evangelical vote. But instead of pandering to the base of the
theocratic movement, what is needed is challenging people with the
truth of evolution, the immorality of patriarchy and bigotry, and the
dire problem of mindlessly following a President bent on an endless war
for empire. It is in this way that some of the people fooled into
being the followers of a fascistic movement can be won over.
The strategy of at best staying silent while theocracy is made law, and
at worst joining in and even sometimes seeking to outdue the
Republicans can only lead to disaster. But this strategy is exactly
what was modeled by the Democratic Party to “take back Congress”. Not
only does this mean those replacing the far-right Republicans in
Congress will be lighter versions of the same, but moreover that all of
us who do think women should have the right to choose, gays should not
face discrimination and bigotry, and that we should not live under a
theocracy are being told to give all this up in the name of retaking
Congress. When this sets the terms for opposition to the Bush regime,
it will only end up ceding ground until there’s nothing left to stand
on (and a world of back-alley abortions, the Bible and creationism
taught in schools as fact, gays subjected to legal and extra-legal
attack, and worse will be the result).
Perhaps the best indication of the danger in the Democrats’ “winning
strategy” comes from the mouth of Tony Perkins, head of the Family
Research Council and a prominent leader in the Christian fundamentalist
movement:
America has spoken. But at a closer glance, this
“new direction” isn’t new at all. Democrats won mainly because they
seized on a platform largely forsaken by the GOP–social values. When
“integrity voters” saw that Republicans had abandoned their principles,
they ultimately abandoned the GOP. From Indiana and Pennsylvania to
Florida and Kentucky, Democratic challengers embraced a partisan
realignment–not as Nancy Pelosi’s radical replicas, but as bona fide
men and women of faith. These proclaimed pro-life, pro-God Democrats,
once extinct, have returned to compete for the confidence of voters.
And while our issues prevailed at the polls, we have yet to see if they
will prevail in Congress.
In short, these people are not going away. And in
looking honestly at the results of this election, the Democratic
victory has in fact helped them advance, including by telling those
opposed to theocracy to shut up about it and accept “compromise” and
“common ground” with religious fanatics.
If we are to reverse this course, it will take an unequivocal
opposition that does not take its orders from the Democratic Party
leadership or sacrifice principle in the name of winning elections. It
will take boldly challenging the vicious ideology and twisted morality
of Christian theocracy, and driving the theocrats and their agenda from
power.
—
[1] For a fuller description of the moves toward theocracy in the
United States, see Ester Kaplan’s With God On Their Side, Rabbi James
Rudin’s The Baptizing of America, Bob Avakian’s The Coming Civil War
and Repolarization for Revolution, and Kevin Phillips’ American
Theocracy, among other works on the subject.
[2] For more on the Casey/Santorum race, see “With Friends Like
These… Bob Casey, the Democrats’ Posterboy Anti-choice Candidate” on
worldcantwait.org.
