For the week of October 21 thru October 27, 1998  

Puritanical views may come back to haunt GOP

Commentary By PAT MURPHY


How ironic– an Idaho Republican political candidate being subjected to the Puritan litmus test that’s become so emblematic of his own political party’s drift into "family values" trivia.

Yup, a caller to a radio talk show asked GOP congressional candidate Mike Simpson whether he’d ever smoked marijuana.

He had, Simpson admitted– 30 years ago, as a college student. He even inhaled.

Whether Simpson’s honesty won over the caller, or merely confirmed suspicions that Simpson was blemished because of a youthful pot-puffing experience, isn’t important.

The caller’s question confirms the narrow agenda of some voters representative of the holier-than-thou right wing of American politics, which seems otherwise utterly indifferent to a candidate’s broader qualifications and credentials.

The "family values" crowd seems obsessed with a candidate’s stand on abortion, homosexuality, school prayer, drugs and desecration of the American flag, and little else.

International geopolitics, federal budgets, trade treaties, environmental air and water quality controls, technology of new defense weaponry and the myriad of complex issues confronting congressmen seem of no concern to the group that has been dubbed "theo-conservatives" – religious conservatives who’ve effectively seized the heart of the Republican Party.

Fully 25 percent of the Republican Party’s delegates to the 1996 nominating convention were identified as members of the Christian Coalition. By the 2000 convention, the numbers will have multiplied and final control of the GOP seems inevitable.

The ultimate objective of the religious right’s "family values" strategists is a cleansing of America by imposing a theocratic form of government with a

religious and moral code. Nothing would be exempt from the morals police – arts, music, books, film, personal sexual conduct. Everything would be subject to regulation, even private bedroom conduct.

Which is one of the curious contradictions of the religious right and its minions in the Senate and House in Washington and local offices of the states and cities.

These religious conservatives customarily bristle at the notion of larger, costlier, more intrusive government – but then show up on the frontlines with new laws and amendments to the Constitution to enforce their will involving prayer, outlawing abortion, banning homosexuals from the military, criminalizing desecration of Old Glory.

They’re the same voices that denounce language and images in film, rap music and on the Internet as shaping sociopathic misconduct – but then deny that their own harsh language about gay Americans or abortion clinics has any influence in shaping violent attitudes toward gays and abortion clinics.

Well-meaning foot soldiers in the "family values" crusade blindly see only virtue and an end to sin ahead.

But history about religious zealotry teaches otherwise. More people have suffered and died in the name of religion than any other cause. One need only look to today’s governments where religion rules to see ghastly evidence of crimes committed in the name of someone’s God.

And after centuries of trying, religious zealots still haven’t obliterated sin or purged evil from humankind, and insist on imposing their will on the unwilling, no matter what the costs.

 

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