The Two Faces of the Christian Coalition

By The People for the American Way

Table of Contents

Introduction
   The Contract with the American Family
   The Christian Coalition
Strategy
   Success at the State and Local Level
   The Christian Coalition and the Republican Party
The Agenda
   Separation of Church and State
   Religious Intolerance
   Monopolizing Faith
   Education
   Reproductive Freedom
   Women
   Homosexuality
Becoming "Mainstream"
   The New Agenda
   New Alliances
   Minority Outreach
   The Myth of Victimization
The Future

Introduction

Defying predictions that he would fade from the political scene as a result of his showing at the 1992 Republican National Convention, Televangelist Pat Robertson has instead emerged as one of the country's most powerful political leaders. In the past three years, Robertson's Christian Coalition has grown from a small and sporadically successful organization into a political machine that regularly influences policy from local school boards to the halls of Congress. It has become the dominant organization in an increasingly significant political movement -- the Religious Right.

The group initially pursued its agenda through "stealth" campaigns in which the Coalition instructed candidates to conceal their views. With such tactics becoming difficult in the face of scrutiny, the Coalition, under the guidance of Executive Director Ralph Reed, has sought to put a mainstream face on the movement. The Coalition has expanded its agenda to include fiscal concerns and attempted to forge alliances with non-traditional constituencies -- Catholics, Jews, and African-Americans. The organization has softened its rhetoric so much that speaking to the public at large, leaders rarely discuss abortion, homosexuality, or any of the group's core issues. Instead, they talk in vague terms about commonly held concerns, such as family breakdown and moral decline. When they do discuss "culture war" topics before mainstream audiences, Coalition leaders dilute or even contradict avowed beliefs.

The Christian Coalition has settled on a long-term strategy: building a base within, perhaps taking over, the Republican Party. The Christian Coalition has worked with other Religious Right groups to capture control of as many as 18 state Republican parties and to gain a strong influence in about a dozen others. With such power at the state level, the Christian Coalition is well positioned to dominate the process of nominating a Republican candidate for president and electing delegates to the 1996 Republican National Convention. The organization has made enormous strides at the national level as well. Shortly after the Republican majorities took over in Congress, Ralph Reed announced that the Christian Coalition would launch a $1 million campaign in support of the Contract With America. After the first 100 days had expired, Reed and the Christian Coalition came to collect the returns on their investment in the Party. On May 17, Reed released the Contract With the American Family, the Coalition's watered-down but nonetheless far right social program. Republican leaders, either because they support the Contract or because they fear the Coalition's influence, have pledged to pursue passage of every item in the document.

At its core, the Christian Coalition seeks an agenda that threatens liberty. Behind their mild rhetoric lurks an undeniable truth: Coalition leaders want to create a Christianized government that criminalizes abortion, denies gays and lesbians basic rights of citizenship, and dictates when and how public school children should pray. Perhaps even worse, they clutter the country's public discourse with divisive rhetoric. Robertson's television show, The 700 Club, Coalition meetings, publications, and direct mail are still forums for virulent attacks on public education, homosexuals, feminists, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, and reproductive rights. The group's "mainstreaming" effort may have attracted some new supporters and quieted some critics, but its hasn't changed the organization in any fundamental way. Robertson's vision for America still defines the organization and energizes its constituents.

The Contract With the American Family

Shortly after the 1994 elections, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said he would push for a school prayer amendment to the Constitution. The announcement dominated the national headlines for almost two weeks, prompting Ralph Reed to say a prayer amendment "is not our top priority." Aware that the Republican's performance on economic issues might determine the fate of its social initiatives, Reed told Congress to focus on the Contract With America. In January, the Christian Coalition launched its biggest legislative initiative ever to campaign for the items in the Contract.

During Congress' first 100 days, the Christian Coalition focused on the Contract's economic planks, with one notable exception. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Reed announced the Coalition would not support a GOP presidential ticket that includes a pro-choice candidate. Seeking to appease core supporters and other Religious Right leaders, who had complained about the Christian Coalition's silence on social issues, Reed said, "Pro-life and pro-family voters, a third of the electorate, will not support a party ... that does not share Ronald's Reagan belief in the sanctity of innocent human life." Reed's litmus test produced a firestorm of controversy, forcing Reed to back off his statement and to concentrate once again on tax cuts and welfare reform.

But after the House had voted on the ten items in the Contract with America, the Christian Coalition unveiled its Contract with the American Family, a ten-point social program with a prayer amendment as its "top priority." At the press conference to announce the plan, Reed, surrounded by a mass of Republican leaders, claimed, without offering evidence,. that the items are "supported by a majority of the American people." The introduction to the contract goes even further, saying "the provisions in the Contract enjoy support from 60 to 90 percent of the American people."

But a poll commissioned by People For the American Way and conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates found that a strong majority of Americans reject most items in the contract -- vouchers (60 to 35 percent), the "religious equality" amendment (58 to 34 percent), abolishing the Department of Education and cutting public education funding (57 to 36 percent), eliminating funding for the arts and public broadcasting (55 to 41 percent) and abortion restrictions and abolishing family planning (54 to 40 percent). In all, only two planks -- on pornography and restitution for victims of crime -- gained majority support, and none reached the 60-percent level promised by Reed.

Most Americans therefore oppose the Contract with the American Family, which is but a shell of the Christian Coalition's complete agenda. Republicans leaders, including the leading Presidential contenders, have nonetheless cast their lot with the Christian Coalition. The GOP's embrace of the Coalition confirms the success of a long-term strategy based on grassroots activism and moderating views for public consumption. By any measure, the Christian Coalition has come a long way in just six years.

The Christian Coalition

Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential campaign, a failure by most measures, supplied an ideal foundation for a grassroots organization. Donors became members, campaign workers became staffers, the National Republican Senatorial Committee provided a seed grant of $64,000, and the Christian Coalition was born. Robertson placed the organization under the day-to-day control of Ralph Reed, who, at 27, had already amassed solid Religious Right credentials. After serving as executive director of Students for America, a Jesse Helms-financed group, Reed led a series of infamous abortion protests outside a Raleigh abortion clinic in the early '80s, according to the Raleigh News and Observer. Reed choreographed mock baby funerals, and threatened to picket the targeted clinic and its doctor's home until he closed the facility or financed a home for unwed mothers. Reed was eventually arrested for refusing to leave the clinic's porch. Reed has spent the last seven years toning down his act and attempting to reinvent the Christian Coalition as a mainstream organization.

The Christian Coalition now claims 1.6 million members, another 300,000 names and 60,000 churches in its data bank, 1400 chapters in all 50 states, volunteers in more than 50,000 precincts, and a budget of $25 million. It has two monthly publications, Religious Rights Watch and Christian American, which claims 700,000 subscribers.

The Christian Coalition is a relatively small part of Robertson's empire, a commercial-religious-educational network worth more than one billion dollars. Robertson founded the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1960 as a non-profit religious organization. Since the mid-60s, he has hosted the 700 Club, a combination "news" and variety show. With more than seven million viewers every week, the 700 Club has become the most watched televangelist show in history.

Other non-profits have grown out of CBN. Operation Blessing claims to have distributed more than $80 million worth of humanitarian aid around the world. Robertson serves as the chancellor of Regent University, which has more than 1,400 students in several graduate programs, including an unaccredited law school. Three years ago, he founded the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) to help "restore America to her Godly heritage" by battling what Robertson perceives as discrimination against Christians. With an operating budget of more than $10 million and 500 affiliated attorneys nationwide, the ACLJ, under the leadership of Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, has become the country's leading Religious Right legal group.

Ten for-profit businesses have also sprung from the non-profit CBN, including the tremendously successful International Family Entertainment (IFE), which owns the Family Channel, founded in 1977, and MTM Entertainment, a production company that holds the rights to a host of syndicated programs. A few years ago, the Family Channel's assets surpassed CBN's, a violation of tax laws that prohibit for-profit subsidiaries from outgrowing non-profit parents, so Robertson sold the Family Channel to IFE, which he owns with his son. The Family Channel, which airs The 700 Club twice daily, reaches 58 million homes through 10,000 cable systems. Robertson also owns an airplane charter company, a travel agency, a radio station, a luxury hotel, a news delivery service, a company that produces family films, and Kalovita, which sells toiletries.

The juxtaposition of the CBN ministry and commercial interests has drawn fire from segments of both the religious and business communities. Christian Century points out that some of CBN's fundraising letters say in fine print that funds are used "in accordance with Ezra 7:17-18," the latter of which reads, "Whatever seems good to you and your colleagues to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do, according to the will of your God." Such an arrangement allows Robertson to use tax-exempt funds instead of bank loans for capital. Presumably many donors who intend to support the ministry are unknowingly financing Robertson's commercial ventures.

Robertson generally eschewed politics until the late '70s, when many religious figures, inspired by New Right leaders, began to mobilize conservative Christians for political action. He distanced himself somewhat from the Moral Majority, Christian Voice, and the other major organizations of the time, although he served a brief stint with the Religious Roundtable. In 1981, he formed the Freedom Council and in 1985, the National Legal Foundation, marginally successful forerunners to the Christian Coalition and the ACLJ, respectively.

Officially, the Christian Coalition has five goals:

Its mission derives from Robertson's belief that atheistic and humanistic forces, which include media, education, and entertainment elites, the courts, civil libertarians, and an array of liberal groups, have transformed the country from a Christian nation to an "anti-Christian pagan nation." The Coalition's goal is to change it back.

Strategy

In his 1990 book, The New Millennium, Robertson writes "[W]ith the apathy that exists in our nation, a small, well-organized minority can influence the selection of candidates to an astonishing degree." Indeed, the Christian Coalition's success has verified Robertson's faith in the power of the minority. Conscious of the group's position on the margins of the political spectrum, Robertson and Reed initially relied largely on covert tactics to push their agenda. In 1992, Reed told a Coalition gathering, "The first strategy, and in many ways the most important strategy, for evangelicals is secrecy." Such tactics alone, however, do not explain the group's success. Christian Coalition activists have simply out-organized and out-mobilized moderate and liberal opponents. Their commitment to mastering the details of grassroots activism and Republican party politics is a striking exercise in effective political action.

Success at the State and Local Level

The Christian Coalition's initial approach to elections, popularly known as "stealth" tactics, has three essential parts: targeting low-profile elections that normally attract few voters, focusing get-out-the-vote efforts on certain conservative churches, and instructing the candidates to hide their views from the public by avoiding public appearances and refusing to fill out questionnaires. The Coalition's strategy first attracted national attention in 1990, when a coalition of right-wing groups, led by the Christian Coalition, helped candidates in San Diego win 60 of 90 races for a variety of offices, from school to hospital board.

Apparently indifferent or oblivious to the threat posed to democracy by "stealth tactics," Reed boasted of their success. "[S]tealth was a big factor in San Diego's success," he said. "But that's just good strategy. It's like guerrilla warfare. If you reveal your location, all it does is allow your opponent to improve his artillery bearings. It's better to move quietly, with stealth, under cover of night." He expanded the metaphor elsewhere, "I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night." Reed subsequently tried to justify the strategy by suggesting it was ordained by God. Speaking at a Coalition meeting in Montana, he compared the group's tactics to methods of war used by the Israelites. "What the Lord did was first the principle of secrecy and deception," he said. When challenged about his statements, Reed seemed to believe the controversy derived not from his embrace of deception, but from his use of war imagery. "Having learned from that error, I now make the same point by making a sports analogy: You don't pass your playbook to the opposing team's coach the night before the big game," he said.

Under intense pressure, Reed has since renounced covert tactics and now denies the group ever used them. The Coalition has flourished even without widespread stealth because of its prodigious organizing. Religious Right groups, led by the Christian Coalition, have made the winning difference in a number of elections. For example:

• Reed claims the Coalition made the difference in the narrow victories of Senators Jesse Helms (R-NC) in 1990 and Paul Coverdell (R-GA) in 1992.

• In 1992's November elections, seven congressional winners had direct ties to the Christian Coalition, and candidates affiliated with Religious Right groups won 40 percent of their races, amounting to 220 victories nationwide.

• In California, Religious Right-affiliated candidates won nearly half the 500 races they entered in all of 1992.

• In the 1993 New York City School Board elections, the Christian Coalition's candidates won 50 seats. Reed claims his group had a 62 percent success rate, although the Coalition elsewhere denies it even endorsed candidates.

• In 1994, Oliver North, Senatorial candidate from Virginia, and David Beasley, gubernatorial candidate in South Carolina, won nominations largely because of the Coalition's support.

• In the 1994 elections, a People For the American Way election study demonstrated that 60 percent of candidates aligned with or backed by the Christian Coalition or other Religious Right groups won. According to Reed, 33 percent of the electorate were "self-identified evangelical" voters, 65 percent of whom voted Republican, and 28 of the Congresspeople who won election are "conservative, religious pro-family" candidates. Other independent studies have found similar results.

The Christian Coalition's principal "contribution" to electoral politics is the distribution of election-eve voters guides. Nominally nonpartisan but plainly directive, the guides outline the candidates' positions on a variety of issues. The Coalition's descriptions, however, are often manipulative. They describe a supporter of the National Endowment for the Arts, for example, as an proponent of "tax-funded obscene art." Many candidates refuse to respond to the questionnaires for fear of distortion. Some are offended by the group's inquiries about their religious beliefs. The Tennessee Christian Coalition's questionnaires, for example, asked candidates if they "believe in the Bible as the infallible, unalterable, devinely(sic)-inspired word of God" and leaves a space for "a brief description of your personal salvation story (when you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior)." If, however, candidates refuse to fill out the Coalition's questionnaires, the group attempts to do it for them by reviewing voting records, a process that often calls for conjecture. The South Carolina Christian Coalition circulated a pamphlet saying Democratic Congresswoman Liz Patterson supported abortion on demand and homosexual rights, both of which she has opposed. Ministers in local churches assailed her fabricated record, presumably contributing to her defeat. The guides and the Coalition's ties to the Republican Party have led the Democratic National Committee to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, challenging the group's tax-exempt status.

The Coalition denies it endorses candidates, but leaders clearly view the voters guides as instruments for shaping voter opinion. At the group's first leadership school in New York, State Director Jeff Baran indicated the guide's true purpose, as described by the New York Observer:

The Coalition is running into some difficulty as the electorate grows more informed. In June of 1994, all five candidates backed by the Christian Coalition lost school board races in Virginia Beach despite -- or perhaps because of -- Robertson's considerable support. The candidates, who ran as the "Family First" slate, couldn't hide their affiliation with Robertson, whose empire is based in Virginia Beach, and were soundly defeated. So long as a mere fraction of voters participate, however, this "well-organized minority" is well positioned to wield inordinate influence.

The Christian Coalition and the Republican Party

In 1991, Robertson said, "We want ... to see a working majority of the Republican Party in the hands of pro-family Christians by 1996." According to a report by the Anti-Defamation League, the Religious Right already wields strong influence, in some cases outright control of, Republican Party organizations in 18 states: California, Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, Oklahoma, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Hawaii, Alaska, North Carolina, Colorado and Pennsylvania, and Arizona. A recent survey by Campaigns and Elections found that the movement has a "substantial level" of power (25 percent to just under 50 percent) in 13 other GOP state organizations.

Since the Coalition's inception, leaders have urged activists to attend the caucuses that elect delegates to county and state GOP committees. Often, a few activists can dominate these meetings, especially if they hide their intentions and affiliations. The Pennsylvania Christian Coalition instructed members to "become directly involved in the local Republican committee" but warned "You should never mention the name Christian Coalition in Republican circles."

Some state GOP committees, inundated with Religious Right activists, have drafted extreme party platforms. In 1992, Iowa's called for required reporting of AIDS "carriers," a cap on AIDS funding, mandatory teaching of creationism, and restriction of government spending for pre-schools. The same year, Washington state's recommended a ban on homosexuals in health care, daycare and teaching jobs, a return to the gold standard, corporal punishment in the public schools, a ban on public school "channeling, witchcraft or values clarification," and a reoccupation of the Canal Zone by the United States.

The Religious Right is also using its power to replace mainstream GOP officials with its own. These new leaders range from the extremely conservative to the radical, such as Dr. Steven Hotze, the Republican chairman of Texas's Harris County, which includes Houston, the home of George Bush. Hotze, an outspoken anti-gay activist with strong theocratic leanings, has argued that if the United States is to survive, government must adhere "to its God-ordained role of providing justice based upon God's laws," according to Church and State magazine. Moderate Republicans, under siege across the country, have expressed disgust at the agenda and tactics of their preemptors. In South Carolina, for example, where the Christian Coalition controls the Executive Committee and the top three party posts, ousted GOP chairman Barry Wynn said his party had become "intolerant, un-American, and un-Republican" and charged it with discriminating against non-churchgoers.

To elect delegates to the 1992 Republican National Convention, the Coalition distributed a pamphlet outlining the rules for the selection process in each state, then activated its well-honed grassroots machine. As a result, the Coalition claimed 300 of the 2,100 total delegates and 20 on the 165-person platform committee. Their prominence contributed to the staunchly conservative platform as well as the Convention's character, roundly condemned for its intolerance and stridency.

The Christian Coalition's influence is especially pronounced in states where conventions endorse or determine GOP candidates. At Minnesota's Republican convention in June, the party rejected the moderate incumbent governor Arne Carlson and endorsed Allen Quist, a former state legislator who has said that men have a "genetic predisposition" to head the household. The outcomes of conventions often don't reflect the will of the majority of voters, as evidenced by Carlson's resounding victory over Quist in the primary election. Religious Right activists have dominated the last two GOP conventions in Virginia, where delegates to the convention actually select candidates. In 1993, Michael Farris, formerly of the Moral Majority and Concerned Women for America, captured the nomination for Lieutenant Governor. In 1994, Oliver North won the Senatorial bid with the strong support of the Christian Coalition.

In some important races, particularly in states with strong Christian Coalition organizations, the group has even worked to elect some candidates who disagree with the Coalition on a key issue or two. The group, for example, claims to have helped elect nominally pro-choice Senators Paul Coverdell (R-GA) and Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX). According to Reed, this tactical decision reflects the group's inclusiveness. The Coalition's issue positions, however, haven't changed; indeed, the Christian Coalition has never supported a pro-choice conservative when a viable anti-choice candidate was available.

The Agenda

Since the early '80s, a dichotomy has existed between the Religious Right's statements to the mainstream media and those directed at partisan audiences. The gap has grown wider in recent years as leaders, led by Ralph Reed, have sought to soften its image. Speaking to the public at large, leaders water down their extreme views or avoid controversial topics altogether. Of this incongruity, Reed said, "I think our people are beginning to understand that when you go into the public square, you're not preaching to the choir, you've got to turn around and put your back to the choir and speak to the Congregation. And you have to speak in a language that they can understand and can accept."

But the Christian Coalition's two faces differ in more than just style and semantics. Robertson, Reed and others commonly distort their most fundamental beliefs. They blame society's ills on the expansion of individual freedom in the last 30 years, and therefore seek to reform society by expunging liberty. Almost all their proposed solutions -- restricting abortion rights, combating homosexuality, injecting sectarian religion into the public schools, limiting freedom of expression -- infringe on basic civil liberties. In the name of preserving traditional morality and values, the Christian Coalition attacks constitutional principles and the liberties that flow from them.

The Christian Coalition seeks not merely a reversal of progressive changes in recent decades, but the formation of a Christianized government, which disavows the separation of church and state and is inherently discriminatory. Whether the Christian Coalition seeks a true theocracy, where the church controls every facet of government, perhaps only Pat Robertson knows. But he and others have unabashedly expressed their intolerance of other religions and their desire for a government that is, at minimum, steeped in Christianity.

A discussion of constitutional concerns, however, fails to fully convey the threat posed by the Christian Coalition and other Religious Right groups. Even when the Coalition is not formally assaulting First Amendment freedoms, the group seeks to alienate and castigate its opponents with its rhetoric. In a time of increased polarization over social issues, when cultural disputes are tearing communities apart and people are looking to be brought together, the Christian Coalition offers, above all, words of division.

As shown below, the Coalition's rhetoric tailored for public consumption contrasts sharply with its statements to core supporters.

Separation of Church and State

Coalition leaders condemn not merely interpretations of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, but the very concept of church-state separation, which has protected religious liberty since the nation's inception. Robertson calls the separation of church and state "a Soviet concept" and "a Communist Marxist" idea.

In a newsletter, David Nelson, director of the Colorado Christian Coalition, called the separation of church and state a "mythical doctrine." His office distributed a flyer that said, "The 'Separation of Church and State' is: 1. Not a teaching of the founding fathers / 2. Not an historical teaching / 3. Not a teaching of law (except in recent years) / 4. Not a biblical teaching." Commenting on the flyer, which was taken from the work of noted anti-separationist David Barton, Nelson said, "In summary, there should be absolutely no 'Separation of Church and State' in America."

Other Coalition leaders have expressed similar sentiments. Tennessee Director John Hanna often attacks what he calls "the myth of "'separation of church and state.'" Hanna says that because of "language tampering," the "Separation clause (which doesn't exist) takes precedence over the "freedom of religious expression" clause (which does exist)." Pat Hoffman, then-director of the Massachusetts branch, argued that the "'separation of church and state' is a bogus phrase. Our country was founded on Biblical principals and we need to turn back to God and His precepts."

The Coalition's disregard for the separation for church and state is exhibited by its support for the "religious equality" amendment, which Reed calls "the crown jewel" of the Contract with the American Family. The proposal, which the Christian Coalition reportedly helped draft with eight other Religious Right organizations, would virtually abolish the First Amendment's Establishment clause, which mandates the separation of church and state. Most significantly, the amendment would give public school teachers and other government officials the constitutional right to proselytize captive audiences in a variety of public settings, require the state to provide both financial and symbolic support to particular faiths, and entangle government officials in the highly divisive and intrusive process of supervising religious expression in public places.

Religious Intolerance

The belief that the United States is a Christian Nation pervades the group's rhetoric and reflects its general disregard for religious pluralism. Robertson has likened non-Christians to termites, who he said, "are in charge now, and that is not the way it ought to be, and the time has arrived for a godly fumigation."

Though Reed now stresses the importance of inclusion, he said in 1990, "What Christians have got to do is to take back this country, one precinct at a time, one neighborhood at a time and one state at a time ... I honestly believe that in my lifetime we will see a country once again governed by Christians ... and Christian values."

Robertson has said several times that if elected President, he would appoint only Christians and Jews to his cabinet. "[W]hat is Hinduism but Devil worship, ultimately?" he asked. Coalition leaders are now careful to include politically conservative Jews in their vision for the country, but portray liberal Jews as enemies of Christianity. In his 1991 book, The New Millennium, Robertson says "liberal Jews" are trying to "destroy the Christian position in the world."

In recent months Robertson has come under fire for his 1991 work, The New World Order, in which Robertson claims that in the 18th century Jewish bankers launched a plan for world domination, a common anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. In response to criticism, Robertson and Reed have sought to reach out to Jewish groups, renouncing in speeches and editorials anti-Semitism and "Christian nation" philosophy. But on The 700 Club Robertson continues to refer to the United States as a "Christian nation."

His vitriol, however, is not reserved for non-Christians. In 1991 on The 700 Club, he said, "You say, 'You're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that and the other thing' -- nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of anti-Christ. I can love the people who hold false opinions, but I don't have to be nice to them."

Monopolizing Faith

The Christian Coalition claims ordainment from God for its political positions, and questions the faith of those who disagree with them. It has, for example, called Bill Clinton's inauguration "a repudiation of the our founding father's covenant with God." Dick Weinhold, Chairman of the Texas Christian Coalition, recently asserted that "a small minority of godless liberals are working hard to take away our rights." In a particularly ugly incident, a group of Religious Right leaders, including the Christian Coalition's regional director Don Hallman, wrote a threatening letter to U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner William Allen, who was seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in California in 1991. The group claimed Allen's campaign aided "the forces of darkness," and that he would be disciplined by God "however he(sic) sees fit" if he pursued his candidacy.

Robertson has a long history of portraying opponents as atheistic or hostile to religion. In The New Millennium, he writes, "...Liberal Jews have actually forsaken Biblical faith in God, and made a religion of political liberalism." He has also depicted President Clinton as an anti-Christian authoritarian. "God and morality, the Clinton administration wants out of our country," he says. Elsewhere, he claimed, "These socialists and they're in there now, starting with the President and his associates...They want to squeeze out religion because if people read the Bible, they can't be enslaved. You'll never have a socialist Government where everybody's Christian."

Education

The Christian Coalition has launched a multi-faceted campaign to "reform" public schools, which, leaders say, have been taken over by the forces of atheism, humanism and even Satanism. In the name of parental involvement, the group, and the school board members it helped elect, are injecting sectarian religion into public schools. Even where matters of church-state separation are not concerned, Coalition members and their allies have pursued an extreme agenda that threatens the educational opportunities of public school children.

The Coalition pushes two abstinence-only sex-ed curricula, Sex Respect, approved by the Religious Right-controlled school board in Vista, California, and Teen Aid, adopted by the Religious Right majority on the school board in Duval County, Florida. A judge in Louisiana originally barred Sex Respect from the classroom because of inaccuracies and sectarian content. Similarly, Teen Aid contains falsehoods and lacks vital information about contraception and disease control. Says Reed, "We are opposed to students being taught about human sexuality apart from parental input."

The Christian Coalition has worked vigorously for many of the so-called "voluntary" school prayer bills across the country. These measures would allow a majority of students to force other students to listen to a prayer that offends their beliefs. The so-called "religious equality" amendment, which Congress will take up this session, would threaten the rights of students and create enormous problems for public schools. Under the Christian Coalition's proposal, teachers could impose a sectarian prayer on students during class time, and students could use the school's apparatus, such as the intercom and assemblies, to compel others to listen to a sectarian religious message. Furthermore, religious schools would claim a constitutional entitlement, but then be faced with same amount of funds given public schools, threatening public education's very existence.

Some Coalition leaders fail to acknowledge how state-coerced prayer threatens the rights of many students. John Hanna, Director of the Tennessee Christian Coalition says, "We've got a Supreme Court that bans public prayer on behalf of a Jewish family in New York that doesn't want anybody to pray. How on earth do Jews get the idea that if we have prayer that somehow they're going to be discriminated against?"

Robertson himself dismisses concerns about the imposition of sectarian prayer. "You know I've heard all this stuff about little Jewish kids being marred by having to say a prayer in Jesus's name," he said. "That's all you hear when you're with the liberals, the ACLU. 'Well, think about a little Jewish child, you have no idea what went on in their mind.' But listen, we don't hear the liberals talking about what happened to Christian little children."

Robertson also argues for the teaching of creationism in science classes. "[A]ll the evidence on the other side is repressed," he has said. "This is not education. This is brainwashing."

The Christian Coalition has joined other Religious Right groups in opposing various "anti-family" programs for underprivileged children. Of Head Start, the widely acclaimed program for three to five-year olds, Robertson said, "If you're smart, you'll catch up anyway." Don Smith, director of the San Diego Christian Coalition and Trustee on the La Mesa-Spring Valley school board in California, helped to defund the morning and after school pre-school program. Said Smith, "We want to have it like it was a hundred years ago, when God, the Ten Commandments and prayer were the focus of our schools and where morality was taught."

The group has made passage of a voucher initiative a top priority. Religious Right leaders, including Robertson, used to argue openly that government should pay for sectarian education. In supporting Proposition 174, California's voucher bill, Robertson disingenuously spoke of improving public education for all. But in the past, Robertson, has called public educational authorities "radical lunatics," and has said that "[W]e have to work to get the state out of the business of educating kids at the primary and secondary levels, and get that education back in the hands of parents where it belongs." In its Contract With the American Family, the Coalition urges Congress to pass a voucher bill.

Reproductive Freedom

Christian Coalition leaders have recently soft-peddled their views on abortion. Pragmatically, the Coalition has focused on the federal funding of abortion, through both Medicare and national health care, rather than attacking choice outright. The group even supported nominally pro-choice Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) and Paul Coverdell (R-GA) and is backing Joy Corning, a pro-choice candidate for lieutenant governor in Iowa. The Contract With the American Family targeted funding for family-planning and rare abortion procedures for late-term abortions.

But vehement and often virulent opposition to reproductive rights remains an essential part of the group's agenda. The radical harassment and intimidation tactics of Operation Rescue's Randall Terry, who tells his followers to pray for the death of doctors who perform abortions, won Robertson's praise. "[T]hey are doing an enormously beneficial service to every Christian in America," he said.

Robertson claims abortion, which he says is worse "than anything Adolph Hitler did," has produced a culture of death that devalues life in all forms. "We have become so insensitive to death because we kill so many babies in America that now it's an easy thing to terminate the lives of the sick or the elderly." Supporters of abortion rights, according to Robertson, want to kill. "[I]t's incredible that those who claim to be liberal have blood on their hands. They've got this desire to murder."

Women

Robertson often expresses his regressive view of women. "As long as the husband is following the mandate of the Lord, the wife should submit to his authority." he said. Reed tries to dismiss such views by claiming they don't impact Robertson's opinion of equal opportunity for women in employment. But Robertson doesn't think women should work at all. "It's not just any longer the woman who wants to work, but the husbands are forcing wives out of the home. And it's a big mistake, especially if they're with children," he said.

The Christian Coalition opposes the Equal Rights Amendment and led the battle to defeat a state ERA initiative in Iowa in 1992. Of the national ERA, Robertson said, "What people are not sure of, and this is -- I'm not being facetious -- they're not sure of whether it would be interpreted [by] your gender or how you perform sex."

Robertson has also suggested he opposes feminism because of women's mental inferiority. "But the key in terms of mental [ability] -- it has nothing to do with physical -- is chess. There's never been a woman Grand Master chess player...[O]nce you get one, then I'll buy some of the feminism...."

Homosexuality

The Christian Coalition owes much of its strength to its battle against homosexuality, which has become an invaluable organizing and fundraising tool. Whether attacking homosexual rights bills, the Clintons, the National Endowment for the Arts, education curricula, health care reform, the media, or even abortion rights, Coalition leaders trump up the "gay menace" to raise fear, which, in turn, produces money and activism.

Leaders claim they oppose homosexuality or the "homosexual agenda" rather than homosexuals themselves. But to partisan audiences, they depict homosexuals as evil and aggressive. Robertson says homosexuals want "to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers..." He suggests homosexuals are using AIDS as a political device. "Many observers say that AIDS is the hammer and gun of the homosexual movement, an effective vehicle to propel the homosexual agenda throughout every phase of our society," he says.

The group seeks to make homosexuals the scapegoats for the nation's ills. "We have a bankruptcy of morality and AIDS is the consequence," says Robertson. He says natural disasters are God's judgment of homosexuality. Discussing a proposed gay rights bill in California, he said, "[I]f the state of California passes such a measure, I, for one, wouldn't want to be hanging out on the San Andreas Fault right after that...."

The Coalition has fought civil rights protection for gays and lesbians or actively supported anti-gay measures in Florida, Maine, Missouri, Colorado, Oregon, Indiana, Georgia, Connecticut, Ohio, Montana, and Wyoming. Recently, it has been very prominent in the battle to preserve Montana's draconian "deviant sexual conduct code," which equates homosexuality with bestiality and is punishable by 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

The Coalition is expected to be active in Idaho and Oregon, where voters will decide on an anti-gay rights measure. Several members of the Oregon Christian Coalition's Board of Directors are leaders of the Oregon Citizens Alliance, which spearheaded the petition drive to place the measure on the ballot. OCA's Lon Mabon, former state director of the Coalition who has called for the abolition of gay rights supporters from the GOP, led the unsuccessful fight for Ballot Measure 9 in 1992. The bill, which the Christian Coalition supported with $20,000, likened pedophilia, bestiality, sado-masochism, and necrophilia to homosexuality, which it called "abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse."

The Christian Coalition also backed the assault on homosexuality and free expression in Cobb County, Georgia. In 1993, the Country Commission abolished all art funding after complaints about homosexual content in the play, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, and passed a resolution saying that homosexuality is "incompatible with the standards to which this community subscribes." Through Religious Rights Watch, the Coalition urged activists to support both measures. Kay Gartland of the Georgia Christian Coalition praised the Commission "for representing the values of Cobb County residents and for not promoting unlawful sexual behavior with taxpayers' money."

Becoming "Mainstream"

The Christian Coalition's emergence as a genuine political force is due largely to the efforts of its leadership, Ralph Reed in particular, to "mainstream" the organization. That effort has involved four principal components: a repackaged agenda, the development of new alliances with other religious organizations, outreach to minority communities, and persistent attempts to portray its conservative Christian followers as victims of pervasive anti-Christian bigotry.

The New Agenda

Last year, Reed announced his group was going to work on a number of issues not generally associated with the Coalition's agenda, including the economy, crime and governmental reform. To become mainstream, he decided, the Christian Coalition would have to focus less on divisive social issues. "We have allowed ourselves to be ghettoized by a narrow band of issues like abortion, homosexual rights and prayer in school," he said. Reed cited a poll from the 1992 presidential election that found that the top concerns of evangelicals are the same as those of most Americans -- the economy, welfare, the deficit and crime. "Our message has been directed too much to our activists and donors, not to our voters."

Still, it is "activists and donors," not potential supporters, who shape the group's character, as evidenced by its 1993 national conference. Presidential hopefuls Bob Dole, Phil Gramm, and Jack Kemp focused their speeches on the economy and health care, and were coolly received, according to both the New York Times and the Washington Post. But Pat Buchanan didn't disappoint. "Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free," he told 2,000 cheering activists. Perhaps responding to the group's supposed softening, he continued, "We cannot raise a white flag in the cultural war because that war is who we are." By all accounts, Buchanan's speech was the conference's most popular.

Soon after, Reed announced the Coalition would oppose President Clinton's health care plan with its largest and most costly grassroots campaign ever. Though often portrayed as evidence of the group's broadening platform, the $1.4 million effort, which included radio and print advertising and a postcard-writing blizzard, was no marked departure from the group's traditional agenda. The group has mobilized opposition to the plan by discussing, often dishonestly, its ramifications on controversial social matters, such as abortion, homosexual rights, and sex education. It has also distorted the plan to raise fears about President Clinton. Robertson, for example, claims the health plan is part of Clinton's attempt to "squeeze out religion," while Reed says it is "a Trojan Horse for a not-so-hidden agenda to ... promote a radical social agenda."

The new issues are the group's favorite topics of discussion. Leaders talk about term limits, health care and the balanced budget amendment, and instruct activists to do the same. Former National Field Director Guy Rodgers told members to "drop redemptive language." He says, "We must become strategic in our thinking. For example, which is preferable: a winning campaign in which a pro-life candidate primarily stresses tax and economic issues, or a losing campaign in which the candidate talks of nothing but his opposition to abortion?" "Most Americans don't speak 'Christianese,'" Rodgers said, so "we need to couch language in ways they can understand."

The Coalition's literature, however, shows that the changes are more cosmetic than substantive. The April, May/June, July/August, and September, '94 issues of Christian American, for example, included 51 stories, editorials and advertisements about abortion (27), education (15), and homosexuality (9), but only ten about the economy and health care, several of which focused partially on the other three issues. Despite repeated claims to the contrary, social matters still energize the organization. When all five of the candidates backed by the Christian Coalition lost school board races in Virginia Beach, Communications Director Mike Russell admitted it was because the election lacked "emotionally driving issues" like sex education and condom distribution. The group's face may have changed, but its heart remains the same.

New Alliances

In 1992, Robertson said, "The task of evangelicals in politics will be to recognize that a political party is not a church, and therefore it is most counterproductive to exclude...valuable potential allies on the basis of narrowly defined doctrinal purity." Following this lead, Reed has sought to change the Christian Coalition's exclusionist image by reaching out to non-Protestants.

The 1993 New York City School Board elections may have ushered in a period of unprecedented cooperation between the Christian Coalition and the Catholic hierarchy. Cardinal John O'Connor, Archbishop of New York agreed to help the Christian Coalition distribute more than 500,000 voters guides in 300 Catholic churches. Last spring, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia agreed to a similar alliance. Robertson has appointed former campaign aide Marlene Elwell, as the group's liaison to Catholics. Elwell is co-founder of Catholic Campaign, a little known but influential right-wing organization, whose national committee includes William Bennett, Phyllis Schlafly, Congressman Bob Dornan, and Pat Buchanan.

Perhaps most significantly, a group of 40 Catholic and Religious Right leaders, including Robertson, signed a statement urging followers to put aside their differences and work together. Robertson said, "The time has come where we must lay aside minor points of doctrinal differences and focus on the Lord Jesus Christ." The document listed the group's "common causes," which included support for vouchers and moral education, renewed respect for Western culture and concern over multiculturalism.

The agreement could produce an imposing anti-separationist, anti-choice force. The Religious Right gives the Catholic hierarchy technological and organizational sophistication, and in return receives thousands of potential activists as well as credibility, especially in urban areas. Reed responded to the joint statement with effusion. "This is the wave of the future," he said. "It is as significant a coalition to the future of American politics as the unification of Blacks and Jews during the Civil Rights struggle."

The Christian Coalition has also made overtures to the conservative Jewish community. The group joined forces with Orthodox Rabbi Yehuda Levin during New York City's school board races. The group frequently points out that Robertson appointed Marshall Wittman, a Jew, to head its legislative office in Washington D.C. (Wittman has now moved to the Heritage Foundation) and invited several prominent Jewish conservatives to speak at its national conference.

The Christian Coalition has redoubled its efforts to reach out to Jewish group's in the wake of the furor over Robertson's 1991 work The New World Order, in which he disseminates old conspiracy theories about Jewish bankers. In speeches and editorials, Robertson and Reed have spoken of their "love" for the Jewish people, their support for Israel and a strict separation of church and state.

As suggested, however, by its penchant for "Christian Nation" rhetoric, the Coalition's openness to Jews remains in question. A 1993 Tennessee Christian Coalition flyer says "[A]ny person who willingly professes the principal beliefs of the Coalition may become a member of the Tennessee Christian Coalition." The list of "principal beliefs" includes faith in "the sovereignty of God and the redemptive salvation of Jesus Christ." Robertson still refers to the United States as a "Christian Nation," a belief that is central to his philosophy.

Minority Outreach

In 1993, Reed held a press conference to release the results of a survey that he said "reveals a genuinely surprising level of support for the conservative, pro-family agenda among Hispanics and African-Americans." He claimed that on virtually every issue, minorities are as conservative as whites. He said the survey "will lead us to do more to 'cast a wider net' and reach out to our brothers and sisters in the African-American and Hispanic communities."

That effort actually began the previous spring during New York City's school board elections. Minority leaders, such as Roy Innis of the Congress on Racial Equality and Olga Goez of the Family Defense Council, welcomed Robertson's help in trying to elect right-wing candidates. In the Los Angeles Mayor's race a few weeks later, the Christian Coalition handed out voters guides in 700 African-American, Latino, and Asian churches.

Although some segments of minority communities have gladly accepted the organization's help in pursuing specific political goals, the Christian Coalition hasn't garnered significant support from these groups. Indeed, outreach to African-American and Hispanic communities presents the Christian Coalition with a daunting task, given minorities' longtime affiliation with the Democratic Party and the Religious Right's poor record on matters of racial justice.

Robertson opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1988 and 1991, and even called the Civil Rights Act of 1985 "one of the most frightening pieces of legislation that has been brought up." Robertson questioned the evil of Apartheid, as well as the wisdom of ending it. "I've been to South Africa," he said. "I know we don't like Apartheid, but the blacks in South Africa, in Soweto, don't have it all that bad." Elsewhere he said, "Again, I think 'one man one vote,' just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, a minority, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights..."

The Christian Coalition's leaders nonetheless portray themselves as civil rights crusaders, and liberals as the oppressors of African-Americans. The Religious Right used to argue for vouchers on the grounds that parents shouldn't pay twice for their children's education. Reed, however, has discovered a more politically correct line of argument. "It is ironic that the very liberals who once stood in the schoolhouse door to defend the rights of blacks to come into our public school system are now standing at the schoolhouse door, locking the doors and not allowing them to get out," he said. Accordingly, the Christian Coalition ran a radio advertising campaign directed at minority audiences in its unsuccessful effort to pass Proposition 174, California's school voucher bill.

Robertson frequently claims the purpose of various policies is to oppress African-Americans. "Planned Parenthood and others who want to engage in this eugenics ... they don't want black people in the inner cities having babies," he says. When a Black high school principal was suspended for allowing a student to read a prayer over the intercom, Robertson suggested it was an act of racism. "This is a Black principal. And in that school, there are many people who are racial minorities and to think that the government would come in and tell that man that he can't let those students pray. It's outrageous."

The group has tried to mobilize opposition to gay rights bills by fostering anti-gay sentiment in minority communities. "To compare black people, Asians, Hispanics, women, handicapped people with sexual deviants is something wrong," Robertson says. Reed, along with Don Wildmon, Lou Sheldon, William Bennett, and Ed Meese, appear in Gay Rights/Special Rights, a 40-minute film which claims a gay rights bill would undermine the rights of "real" minorities.

While blasting homosexuals for drawing parallels between their struggle and the Civil Rights movement, Robertson frequently compares the plight of Christians today to that of African-Americans in the '50s and '60s. "Do you remember the Civil Rights movement? he asks. "They let black people on board the bus, but they had to go and sit at the back of the bus. When a black person tried to move to the front of the bus, then they put him in jail. Well, that's what is happening now; Christians can go in a little tiny corner."

The Myth of Victimization

As part of its new media strategy, the Christian Coalition has intensified one of the Religious Right's favorite rhetorical devices -- perpetuating the notion that people of faith face oppression and even danger. The tactic has enabled the Christian Coalition to feign a defensive posture, while actually attacking opponents' tolerance and religious conviction.

Robertson has long raised fears and money by portraying Christians as a persecuted people. "And unless you and I take action right now, Christians could be the next endangered species right here in America," he wrote in a recent fundraising letter. Such rhetoric requires more than a little hypocrisy, since Robertson has been among the most vociferous critics of legitimate claims of oppression by other groups.

But Robertson is unabashed. Robertson has frequently spoken with passion about the Holocaust in recent weeks, but he trivializes the tragedy and insults its victims by comparing himself, a man of enormous political and economic power, to a Jew under Hitler. "In Germany, ladies and gentlemen, Jews were placed in an inferior status. They couldn't identify themselves as Jews or they had to wear a Star of David and get put in ghettos and get stigmatized. And that what the liberals want to do is stigmatize Christians. I have seen it against me in the media for years."

Recently, the Christian Coalition has used subtle variations of the same theme to shield itself and its allies from criticism. Although responsible opponents of Religious Right groups have uniformly challenged their policies rather than their right to advocate them, Reed claims they want to exclude Christians from the political process. In the Christian American, under the headline, "Liberals fear Christians," Reed says "The liberals don't want Christians involved in the political process. But Christians are Americans, too, and we intend to make our voices heard." The implication is clear: liberals are not Christians, and a good Christian cannot be liberal.

When Michael Farris, the 1993 candidate for Virginia's Lieutenant Governor, came under attack for his radical political views on women and education, Reed and Robertson sought to stifle debate by claiming the criticism amounted to anti-Christian bigotry. The strategy has been extremely valuable in countering the recent wave of attacks by Democratic leaders, because it shifts attention from the Religious Right's agenda to the motives of its critics. Shrewdly, Religious Right leaders make their faith the focus, then blame others for doing the same.

The Future

The critical test for the Christian Coalition will be the 1996 Presidential election, when the Religious Right will need to prove that it is not, as many believe, an insurmountable barrier between the Republican Party and the White House. Republicans have made it clear that they will win or lose with the Religious Right's support. Toward that end, all the major presidential contenders have courted the Religious Right and the Christian Coalition in particular. All the major candidates for the Republican nomination, with the exception of California Governor Pete Wilson, a social moderate, will address the Christian Coalition's national conference on September 8th and 9th.

Regardless of its influence on national politics, however, the Christian Coalition will continue to wield its heavy hand at the local level, where leaders believe they can have the greatest impact on the culture. "I would love to have a Christian in the White House. That would be great," said Tom Scott, director of the Florida Christian Coalition. "But I would rather have a Christian in every school board seat in America."

The group's future, however, may ride on Reed's campaign to sell the group as a mainstream organization. Reed will continue to talk about tolerance and term limits, while Robertson will continue to use the Christian Coalition to try to take back the country for "God's People":