1. Religious Right Darling Throws Hat in RNC Chair Race.
Ken Blackwell has thrown his hat into the race for chairman of the Republican National Committee, making him the highest-profile religious-right figure to seek the job.
Blackwell's past four years in public life have been defined by controversy. While he was secretary of state of Ohio, he got the state embroiled in numerous lawsuits over his handling of the 2004 presidential election, which was riddled with irregularities. He allied himself with unapologetic theocrat Rod Parsley and was on hand for events like the launch of Parsley's Reformation Ohio -- an effort to evangelize 100,000 Ohioans -- on the statehouse steps. Parsley was later investigated by the Internal Revenue Service for allegedly campaigning for Blackwell in violation of his church's tax-exempt status (the results of such investigations are kept secret and, although Parsley did not lose his tax-exempt status, the IRS is empowered to impose a lesser penalty, like a fine). Blackwell and the Ohio GOP also tried to smear Ted Strickland, Blackwell's opponent in the 2006 gubernatorial race, by insinuating that he was gay and that he wasn't an ordained minister (he is). Blackwell, though, lost to Strickland by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.
After his drubbing at the polls, Blackwell became a fellow at the Family Research Council -- although it's not clear what he's done there apart from write columns for Townhall.com and other outlets -- and helped indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay launch an organization called the Coalition for a Conservative Majority.
So there you go: He's the perfect candidate to run the GOP. He's never really accomplished anything except running for office, running said office into the ground, hanging out with irrational, self-promoting televangelists, and trying to resuscitate the Republican brand by forming an organization with one of the people most responsible for bringing it down. Sounds like a great head of the party!
2. Reforming the Faith-Based Initiatives
Last week the Brookings Institution released a report, co-authored by Washington Post columnist and Brookings fellow E.J. Dionne and Melissa Rogers, director of the center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake Forest University Divinity School, suggesting 16 reforms of President Bush's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives should Barack Obama carry through with his campaign promise to institute his own version of the program.
The recommendations are based on the premise that it's a good idea to have faith-based groups partner with the government to provide needed social services -- something to which church-state separation advocates object. That said, if we're going to have faith-based initiatives, the reforms suggested are certainly steps in the direction of improving Bush's program. The recommendations included greater accountability to prevent cronyism and political patronage, not using the initiatives as replacements for a government social safety net, the formation of nonprofits separate from houses of worship to receive taxpayer funds, and improvements in monitoring compliance with church-state separation safeguards.
One of the most controversial recommendations at a press conference releasing the report last week was the suggestion that the new administration commission a study to determine whether prohibiting faith-based organizations that receive government funds from discriminating in hiring staff would impede the organizations' ability to deliver services. But I can't see how either side of this debate -- on the one hand, opponents of allowing recipients of government money to discriminate in hiring, and on the other, those who argue that such discrimination is required for these programs to maintain their unique religious character -- would be swayed by the outcome of such a study. Dionne and Rogers say they're looking for common ground on a contentious issue, but I don't think they're going to find it.
3. Does the Bible Condone Gay Marriage? Does that Matter?
This week's Newsweek cover story is a thoughtful and well-researched scriptural defense of gay marriage by the magazine's religion editor, Lisa Miller. Predictably, the religious right is livid. The American Family Association took some time out from excoriating Costco for allegedly waging a "war on Christmas" (will they ever get over this?) to issue an action alert to its members. "Miller's article," wrote the AFA's president, Don Wildmon, "is one of the most biased and distorted pieces concerning homosexual marriage ever published by any major news organization."
Talk radio host Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's flagship seminary, issued a rebuttal to Miller, and was particularly incensed by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, whose editor's note accompanying Miller's piece maintains that the "conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism."
The reality is that Scripture is not the reason for opposing gay marriage; it's the excuse. As Miller puts it, "Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition (and, to talk turkey for a minute, a personal discomfort with gay sex that transcends theological argument)." The invocation of Scripture to support this or that -- such as Rick Warren justifying the invasion of Iran by telling Sean Hannity that the Bible compels the United States to "punish evildoers -- is an ex post facto rationalization for a political agenda, designed to give it an unchallengeable imprimatur. (Warren similarly invoked the Bible to justify his own exhortation to his followers to vote for California's Proposition 8.)
While it's important to recognize that fundamentalists don't own the interpretation of Scripture, it's also essential to make the point that anyone's interpretation of the Bible shouldn't dictate how the government does business.
4. The Conservative Split in the Episcopal Church: A Big Deal, or Not So Much?
Last week The New York Times broke the news that a group of conservative Episcopalians opposed to the ordination of gay bishops finally separated themselves from the Episcopal Church to form their own denomination. They had threatened such action since 2003, when the Church first elected Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop.
Since then, breakaway churches, including The Falls Church in Northern Virginia, attended by prominent Republicans like former Bush speechwriter and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes, and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, have threatened to split from the Episcopal Church, which is part of the Anglican Communion, and have sued church hierarchy over property-ownership disputes.
The Times played the formal split -- in the making for five years -- as a mortal challenge to the mainline denomination, which represents about 2.2 million American Episcopalians. But Jim Naughton, the canon for communications and advancement of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, a critic of the breakaway faction, called the Times' coverage a "massive overreaction." Only about 5 percent of Episcopalians, he said, are represented in the anti-gay breakaway group.
Naughton chalked up the coverage to "a PR campaign aimed at scaring the daylights of other mainline denominations who might be considering ordination of gay clergy ... [to try to] put the fear of God in them by doing as much damage to [the] Episcopal Church as possible."
As to whether the Church believes damage has been inflicted, Naughton said, "I don't think our long-term institutional viability has been damaged, but trying to defend ourselves against these constant attacks in the media and the courts takes a lot of energy and money that could be better spent on other aspects of our ministry ... it is a drag on work we think God is calling us to do."
Which is exactly what the religious right excels at: using a minority cacophony to suck all the oxygen out of the room.
5. Televangelist Kenneth Copeland Denied Tax-Exemption for Use of Private Jet
Televangelist Kenneth Copeland, under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee for allegedly diverting tax-exempt donations raised by his ministry for his personal gain, was dealt a blow by government officials in Fort Worth, Texas, on Monday. The Tarrant County Appraisal District review board ruled that Copeland's $3 million private jet was not subject to a tax exemption under local law. The board had tried to compel the Copelands to disclose church salaries -- presumably to determine whether funds intended for ministry use were being diverted. But the Copelands, who live in an 18,000 square foot house and own multiple cars and aircraft, refused.
That goes to the heart of the Senate Finance Committee investigation, which is examining whether churches -- which are exempt from filing tax returns, unlike nonreligious nonprofits -- need to have greater transparency with the public. The watchdog Trinity Foundation has turned over information to the committee showing that the Copelands, who say they use their jets strictly for ministry purposes, have used some of their jets for layovers in places like Hawaii and Fiji, when they apparently had no official engagements.
Contact me at tapthefundamentalist at gmail dot com.
