c. 1996 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ The religious right emerged from the 1994 election like a tiger, claiming a clear-cut victory in turning Congress over to conservative Republican control. After this week’s election, the religious right, while hardly declawed, seems a much tamer animal.
Bob Dole, favored by the religious conservatives in spite of his disavowal of the Republican Party platform shaped by the Christian Coalition, lost big to President Bill Clinton. Issues dear to religious conservatives _ abortion, homosexuality and school prayer _ were rarely mentioned in the presidential campaign.
In House races, many of the candidates most favored by the religious right went down to defeat: Republican Reps. David Funderburk and Fred Heineman in North Carolina; abortion foes Linda Smith and Randy Tate in Oregon. In Washington state, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ellen Craswell, who had promised to appoint only”godly”people to her administration, was trounced by Democrat Gary Locke.
And in Colorado, a controversial parental rights measure strongly supported by religious conservatives was soundly defeated.
Still, religious conservatives helped the GOP maintain its edge in the Senate and House of Representatives, showing itself once again to be an important part of the Republican base.”Unlike two years ago, the results this time were very mixed for religious conservatives,”John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, said Wednesday (Nov. 6).
Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed nevertheless hailed the election results as proof of the religious right’s political influence. Others, however, minimized the influence of religious conservatives.”For the first time in 68 years,”said Reed,”a Republican Congress has been re-elected, and it would never have happened without conservative people of faith who provided the margin of victory.” Reed said self-described born-again Christians who attend church frequently accounted for 29 percent of the total voting public, according to his own polling. Such voters provided”the firewall that prevented a Bob Dole defeat from mushrooming into a meltdown all the way down the ballot,”he said.
Not everyone agreed with Reed’s assessment.
Exit polls by Voters News Service, a consortium of the Association Press and five television networks, reported 16 percent of voters identified themselves as religious conservatives.”They have nothing to claim victory for,”said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.”They lost the presidency; they couldn’t elect their friends; and they couldn’t defeat their enemies. They have reached the peak of their political power.” Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine and a politically moderate evangelical, said the election results show that”evangelicals disagree and evangelicals disagree about politicians.””Evangelical leadership is in open flight from the Christian Coalition,”he added.
The religious right’s major defeat Tuesday, according to Green of the University of Akron, was the Colorado parental rights initiative.
The measure _ which would have amended the Colorado constitution to give parents the legal basis to oppose”liberal”school programs seen by the conservatives as subverting parental control _ was defeated by a wide margin, 58 percent against to 42 percent in favor. Opponents said the measure failed to distinguish between appropriate parental discipline and improper parental abuse, and posed a threat to sex education, controversial books in school libraries and access to abortion information.
As late as October, polls showed a majority of Colorado voters supporting the measure; religious conservatives were touting it as a major political issue that would energize their movement as had abortion.
William Martin, a Rice University professor and author of”With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America,”called defeat of the amendment”a portent.””It’s a sign that when people take the time to become familiar with the implications of some of the positions that religious conservatives actually back, they often will show considerable opposition to them,”Martin said.
Reed acknowledged the significance of the Colorado defeat, which he blamed on a last-minute advertising blitz by opponents. But more important, he said, was the religious right’s contribution to retaining an anti-abortion majority in the House and the strong anti-abortion minority in the Senate.
Dole, he said, represented the Republican Party’s past.”We represent what the Republican Party is evolving into; a populist, pro-life, pro-family Southern and Western (states) party,”he said.
Not so, said religious moderates and liberals, who claimed Tuesday’s election has slowed the religious right’s momentum.”Their bark is a lot worse than their bite,”said Jill Hanauer, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington-based coalition of mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish activists.
Hanauer and others pointed to the religious right’s failure to forge an alliance between conservative evangelical Protestants and Catholics on abortion and other social issues. Clinton won 54 percent of the Catholic vote while Dole won 36 percent _ despite the insistence of religious conservatives that Clinton’s veto of legislation outlawing a controversial late-term abortion proceedure would hurt his standing with traditional Catholics.
None of the opponents was about to say that the religious right had been rendered powerless by the election, however.”The religious right and the Christian Coalition still wield power and influence on the local level,”said the Rev. Katharine Hancock Ragsdale, an Episcopal priest from Pepperell, Mass., who is president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights.
Moreover, said Martin, the Rice University professor, Dole’s defeat could actually strengthen the religious right.
Martin noted the GOP presidential candidate’s effort during the general campaign to distance himself from the Christian Coalition. Ironically, it was the coalition’s decision to support Dole during the Republican primary campaign that provided him with the lift he needed to secure the nomination.
Once nominated, however, the candidate responded to polls showing that many voters _ women in particular _ were turned off by the religious right’s strident rhetoric and uncompromising stand against abortion and homosexuality. Instead of campaigning on the morality issues dear to the religious right, Dole chose to make a promised 15 percent tax cut the centerpiece of his run for the White House.
Had Dole won Tuesday after distancing himself from religious conservatives, said Martin,”the (Christian) coalition and the rest of the religious right would have looked superfluous to many”in the Republican leadership.
Instead, Clinton _ who is anathema to many religious conservatives _ remains the president and a continued target that religious right activists can use to stir their supporters.
But Dole’s decision to downplay his support from religious conservatives did not go unnoticed the day after the election. Gary Bauer, president of conservative religious broadcaster James C. Dobson’s Family Research Council, was among those who mentioned it.
Bauer said Dole’s decision to run from the personal morality issues cost him the election.”Those who focus on economics alone lose. Our hope is that the Republican leadership finally understands this,”Bauer said.
Dole was not the first Republican presidential candidate to turn his back on the religious right after gaining its support, however. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush did the same thing.
Reed said religious conservatives must begin to prepare so that the same thing will not happen again four years from now.”It is fair to say that there is a growing sentiment in the religious conservative community that we cannot allow the nomination of the Republican party for president to simply go to the person who has waited the longest and is next in line almost by institutional inertia,”he said.”Washington lobbyists and inside-the-beltway consultants,”he added,”who are either uncomfortable with the moral and social issues or have a tin ear when it comes to reaching out”to religious conservatives can no longer be allowed to control the GOP.
KC END RIFKIN-ANDERSON
