SORR 06 Report

THE STATE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT { 2006 } TEXAS AND THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IN 2006 www.tfn.org THE STATE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT: 20 0 6 THE ANATOMY OF POWER THE STATE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT { 2006 } TEXAS AND THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IN 2006 A REPORT FROM THE TEXAS FREEDOM NETWORK EDUCATION FUND Kathy Miller, TFN president Dan Quinn, TFN communications director Farid Matuk, contributing writer/researcher William O. Pate II, researcher Jose Zamora, researcher Rachel Mahler, fact checker ABOUT THE TFN EDUCATION FUND The Texas Freedom Network Education Fund is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, nonprofit corporation. Created in 1996, the TFNEF researches the agenda, activities and funding of the religious right. It also educates mainstream people of faith in how to formulate and to advocate a faith-based response to the religious right’s policy agenda. TFN Education Fund Board of Directors Rebecca Lightsey, chair Val Benavidez Diane Ireson Dale Linebarger Janis Pinnelli { i } THE STATE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT: 20 0 6 THE ANATOMY OF POWER TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ii Chapter 1: The Republican Party of Texas: God’s Own Party? ................................................................. 1 Chapter 2: James Leininger: Sugar Daddy of the Religious Right............................................................ 7 Chapter 3: The Texas Restoration Project: Dragging Churches into Partisan Politics........................... 13 Chapter 4: David Barton: Amateur Historian, Professional Propagandist............................................ 17 Conclusion................................................................................................................................................ 22 Endnotes ................................................................................................................................................... 23 Appendices................................................................................................................................................ 25 Appendix A: Watch List: 2006............................................................................................... 26 Appendix B: They Really Said It ............................................................................................ 28 Appendix C: Texas Republican Party Platform: 2004 .......................................................... 31 Appendix D: Political Action Committees of the Religious Right ...................................... 33 Appendix E: Organizations of the Religious Right in Texas ................................................ 37 Appendix F: A “Who’s Who” of Speakers at Texas Restoration Project Events................... 51 Appendix G: The Far Right on the Internet .......................................................................... 52 { i } THE STATE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT: 20 0 6 THE ANATOMY OF POWER THE STATE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT: 20 0 6 THE ANATOMY OF POWER INTRODUCTION tate of the Religious Right: 2006 – The Anatomy The result is that today we see a mix of religion and of Power is the first of a planned series of annual politics that should be astonishing and alarming to reports from the Texas Freedom Network supporters of religious freedom. Prominent conservative Education Fund on the influence of the religious evangelicals such as the Rev. Rod Parsley of Ohio and Sright in Texas. As Texans go to the polls this year in the Rev. Rick Scarborough of Texas sound as much like statewide elections, this report explores the rise of politicians as they do religious leaders. Pastors, they religious conservatives to positions of power in partisan argue, should use their positions to demand that elected politics and state government. officials protect and promote distinctly Christian principles in government. Those who disagree – those Broadly speaking, the religious right is a political who, for example, remind us that separation of church movement that seeks to structure law and society and state is the best protection for religious freedom around a conservative interpretation of Christian – are accused of promoting a “war on Christians.” (Rev. biblical principles. It is not a monolithic organization Scarborough’s Vision America even sponsored a March with one leader. Rather, the religious right includes a 2006 conference in Washington, D.C., called “The War network of individuals, groups and wealthy donors who on Christians and the Values Voter in 2006.”) share a decidedly conservative biblical worldview. Even more alarming is how politicians cravenly pander Since the 1970s, two great pillars of the movement for the support of Parsley, Scarborough and other have been opposition to abortion and gay rights. Over religious-right leaders such as James Dobson of Focus the years, however, social conservatives have also on the Family and Tony Perkins of Family Research pushed a broad agenda that includes state-sponsored Council. We can see this pandering most clearly in prayer in schools, abstinence-only sex education, tax- vitriolic attacks on an independent judiciary. It was funded faith-based social services, and – more recently shocking, for example, when U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay of – opposition to medical research on stem cells. Another Sugar Land predicted some form of retribution for judges high priority has been using tax dollars to fund voucher who ruled that Florida doctors could remove the feeding programs that subsidize tuition at private and religious tubes from a brain-damaged woman trapped for years schools. In fact, public education has been a favorite in a vegetative state.2 Another Texas politician, U.S. Sen. target of the religious right, with leaders such as the John Cornyn, has suggested that cases of judges “making Rev. Jerry Falwell openly calling for the end of public political decisions” might lead people to “engage in schools. “I hope I live to see the day when, as in the violence” in the nation’s courthouses.3 (See Appendix early days of our country, we won’t have any public B for a sampling of some of the more outrageous things schools,” Falwell wrote in 1979. “The churches will have heard from the religious right in 2005.) taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!” 1 Bowing to the religious right was also obvious in Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s decision in June 2006 to sign From the 1970s to the 1990s, the movement’s leaders anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage measures at an often portrayed themselves as “outsiders” working evangelical church school in Fort Worth. Consider also to protect traditional Christian values in a world how political speeches by the governor – and other controlled by secular forces. In the last decade, however, elected officials – often sound much like sermons to those same people who criticized government as the faithful. (See Chapter 3.) In fact, it is becoming secular and anti-Christian have become power brokers increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the in Austin and Washington, D.C. They are judges and preacher in the pulpit and the politician on the stump. lawmakers, bureaucrats and party leaders, lobbyists and They are essentially reading off of the same script. advisers. { i i } INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION { i i i } THE STATE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT: 20 0 6 THE ANATOMY OF POWER THE STATE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT: 20 0 6 THE ANATOMY OF POWER APPHOTO/LM OTERO U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar When Gov. Rick Perry traveled to a Fort Worth Land, speaks here during “Justice church school to sign a parental consent bill on Sunday II,” an event broadcast on abortion and an anti-gay marriage measure, conservative Christian television he was surrounded by prominent leaders on stations across the country in the religious right. From left to right: Molly August 2005. Sponsored by far- White of Redeemed for Life, Joe Pojman of right groups such as the Family Texas Alliance for Life, Kelly Shackelford (partly Research Council, the event obscured) of Free Market Foundation, Dr. Linda featured speakers who railed Flowers of Texas Physicians Resource Council, against “activist” judges whose Kyleen Wright of Texans for Life Coalition and rulings have angered Christian Cathie Adams of Texas Eagle Forum. State Sen. conservatives. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, the author of the bill APPHOTO/JOHN RUSSELL on parental consent, stands at the far right. The Religious Right’s Rise in Texas Texas politicians, it appears, are particularly willing to “Christian nation” and derides the notion that the U.S. appeal overtly for the support of religious conservatives. Constitution guarantees separation of religion and This willingness has grown as the religious right has state. (See Appendix C.) Moreover, most Republican moved in little more than a decade from the fringes candidates for office now find themselves forced to court of the political realm to the halls of Texas politics and the support of the dominant far-right wing of the party. government. Throughout the following four chapters, this report examines how religious conservatives Chapter 2 explores how San Antonio businessman Dr. accomplished this remarkable evolution into a powerful James Leininger has used his fortune to support the political force in the state. Together, these chapters map religious right’s rise to power. Money – mountains of out the anatomy of a powerful movement in Texas: the it – has long been important

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