Chip Berlet: DefCon: Campaign to Defend the Constitution
Friday, September 30, 2005
DefCon: Campaign to Defend the Constitution
There is a new major effort to combat the Religious Right that is trying to be respectful of spiritual belief, yet sharply critical of Dominionism and Theocracy.
Launched only a few days ago, the website is a combination resource center and blog that proclaims:
"The Campaign to Defend the Constitution combats the growing influence of the religious right over American democracy, education, and scientific progress and leadership." As one post explained:
"We are dealing with a powerful group driven by a specific agenda, who seek to control many different facets of our culture. As their power has grown, the religious right has alienated, frightened, or infuriated millions of Americans along the way. DefCon is here to unite these Americans. Regardless of what drove you to fight the religious right, it is imperative we realize that advancements of their agenda anywhere increase their power everywhere."
DefCon has already sent a letter to all 50 governors urging them to "keep science curricula based on science, not religious rhetoric." The group has published "Islands of Ignorance: The Top 10 Places Where Science Education is Under Threat."
Everyone concerned about the Religious Right, defending the Constitution, and respecting separation of religion and state should log on, join the debate, and make a donation. I plan to do all three.
OK, so I seem to be contradicting my last post. But when a new idea comes along that changes reality, I get to change my tune.
Chip Berlet is senior analyst at Political Research Associates in the Boston area. Berlet is co–author of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort (Guilford, 2000) and editor of Eyes Right! Challenging the Right Wing Backlash (South End Press, 1995), both of which received a Gustavus Myers Center Award for outstanding scholarship on the subject of human rights and bigotry in North America.
About Me
Name: Chip Berlet
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
As a teenager in the 1960s, I joined the civil rights movement and helped run a church-based coffee house in suburban New Jersey. Later I was active in the movement against the Vietnam War. I dropped out of college to work in the underground and alternative press and served on the board of the Underground Press Syndicate. In recent years I have written scholarly articles on right-wing social movements, apocalypticism, and neofascism. I am on the board of the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation and on the advisory board of the Center for Millennial Studies.
