1. Are White Evangelicals a Voting Bloc of the Past?
By the 2012 election they will be, says the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the 15 million-member National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. The NHCLC, which Rodriguez describes as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference blended with the National Association of Evangelicals and "a little Taco Bell," represents one of the fastest-growing religious groups in America. Rodriguez says that "in 20 to 30 years, Latino evangelicals will dominate [the political landscape] ... what they believe in socially and politically will influence presidential campaigns." And presidential campaigns, says Rodriguez, "won't be about courting white evangelicals exclusively." "After 2012," he says, "there's no way you can move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue without the Latino vote."
Rodriguez, who describes himself as a centrist and is frequently mentioned as a standard-bearer of the emerging evangelical center, maintains that courting the Latino vote, and the evangelical Latino vote in particular, will drive both parties to the center. As one of the attendees at the meeting Barack Obama had with Christian leaders a few weeks ago, Rodriguez said he already detected such movement in the Democratic nominee. But what impressed him the most, he said, was that Obama "is a man of character and integrity and is speaking the language of Christianity" better than Kerry or Gore did.
Whether Obama's adeptness at talking about religion will be the key to him winning over evangelicals, and whether Rodriguez's predictions about the power of the Hispanic evangelical vote are correct, remains to be seen. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Religious Landscape Survey, white evangelicals still constitute about 80 percent of the roughly one-quarter of the U.S. population that is evangelical; Hispanics only 7 percent, much smaller than the segment of Catholics who are Hispanic (29 percent). Nonetheless, Hispanics are becoming increasingly evangelical (and many Catholic Hispanics are Pentecostal) and tend to be more Republican than their Catholic counterparts.
Rodriguez said he was very impressed by Obama's evangelical outreach, and, although he criticized McCain's anemic relationship with evangelicals, he expressed admiration for McCain's work on immigration. But he admitted that Obama may have a tough road with Latinos who worry that he would "put them aside." And about white evangelicals (for whom he said race and Obama's name would be a negative factors), Rodriguez said, "if they're truly born-again Christians and really want to do the right thing according to Scripture, what would Jesus do, they should really have a conversation on race."
2. Hugs Aside, Did Obama Satisfy Franklin Graham With His Jesus Answer?
As more tidbits emerge from Obama's now-not-so-off-the-record meeting with Christian leaders, the Religion News
Service reports that Franklin Graham, son of ailing evangelical icon Billy Graham, asked Obama if he believed that Jesus was the only way to salvation. One pastor in attendance recounted that "Obama said, brilliantly, 'Jesus is the only way for me. I'm not in a position to judge other people.'"
That answer is in line with the thinking of the majority of Americans, and even a majority of evangelicals. According to a new Pew Center on Religion and Public Life < a href="http://religions.pewforum.org/reports">poll, 70 percent of Americans affiliated with a religion believe that religions other than their own can lead to eternal life, as did 57 percent of evangelicals.
Franklin Graham, however, does not. Appearing on the Trinity Broadcasting Network Graham told TBN host Jan Crouch: "There's not a politician out there who can fix the problems that we face. The only answer to the problems of this world is the blood of Jesus Christ."
Not surprisingly, James Dobson is out of touch, too. Although he wasn't at the meeting, he insists that Obama is distorting the Bible. And he has "fruitcake" interpretation of the Constitution, too, Dobson said. No hidden meaning there, right?
3. Culture War Still Rages in Texas, Courtesy of the State GOP.
At its annual convention earlier this month, the Texas Republican Party adopted a platform that reads "like an owner's manual for political extremists," according to the Texas Freedom Network, a watchdog group that monitors the religious right in the state. Reflecting the influence of the Christian right's very own religious historian, David Barton (who once co-chaired the Texas GOP and was hired by the national party to advise clergy on their participation in the political process in 2004), the platform included a plank labeling the separation of church and state a "myth" and calling for the stripping of court jurisdiction over cases challenging government officials' promotion of religion.
More specifically, the platform called for requiring the teaching of intelligent design and creationism in public school science classes, mandating that public schools promote the "Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded and which form the basis of America's legal, political and economic systems," stripping gay and lesbian parents of custody of their children (a similar ballot measure will go to voters in Arkansas in November), criminalizing abortion, and banning emergency contraception.
Are the culture wars over? Not in Texas, at least.
4. Hyperbole Dominates Anti-Gay Marriage Campaign in California.
Although, for most Americans, gay marriage is becoming increasingly acceptable, for Republicans and evangelicals it remains a hot political issue this season. The percentage of people ranking it as "very important" to their vote is, after declining in 2006, approaching the figures last seen in 2004, when gay marriage bans drove voter turnout in 11 states.
While it's unimaginable that the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the ballot in California would cause Barack Obama to lose the state to John McCain, indefatigable activists in California and beyond are once again making marriage the centerpiece of the election season.
In California this week, pastors across the state will be participating in conference calls hosted by ProtectMarriage.com, a coalition of religious-right organizations, elected officials, pastors, and private citizens. The group is, according to California campaign finance records, largely funded by Focus on the Family, the California affiliate of the National Organization for Marriage (headed by Maggie Gallagher, the activist once paid by the Bush administration to promote its marriage policies in her syndicated columns), and Fieldstead & Co., run by Christian-right financier Howard Ahmanson Jr.
Protect Marriage is promoting the canard, long deployed by the religious right, that legalizing gay marriage (and otherwise protecting the civil rights of LGBTQ Americans) will silence, or even criminalize, the preaching of the Gospel. "This is a winnable war," reads a June 14 Protect Marriage memo to pastors. "And, unfortunately, the freedom to proclaim the Gospel hinges on the outcome of this election."
5. Sin Watch.
In Colorado, defrocked evangelical guru Ted Haggard returned to his Colorado Springs home after asking to be released from his "spiritual restoration program" in Arizona. ("spiritual restoration" i's code for de-gay-ifying him.) No word on whether he was "restored."
In Ohio, the Mount Vernon school board fired teacher John Freshwater after it was discovered that he had branded crosses onto students' arms. Freshwater, an eighth-grade science teacher, had been on thin ice this year, after school officials discovered he kept Bibles on his desk and the Ten Commandments on the walls, taught creationism in science class, and told kids gay people were sinners. Those things, apparently, aren't firing offenses, but using one of these devices from the science lab to burn crosses into children's skin is. Good to know!
Contact me at tapthefundamentalist AT gmail DOT com.
