To Bolt or Not to Bolt? A Perennial Question for Purists
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As many of the major organizations of the Christian Right have solidified
their position within the GOP, they have learned habits of compromise
and political pragmatism. The more purist Christian Right factions have
become increasingly marginalized. Though it was the most radical and
purist leaders and organizations that were largely responsible for the
growth of the Christian Right, often they are now spun off to the margins.
In the 1996 presidential primaries, the Christian Right in the GOP was
divided between Pat Buchanan and Bob Dole. While the Christian Coalition
backed Bob Dole, four top Christian right leaders co-chaired the Buchanan
campaign: Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum, Don Wildmon of the American
Family Association, Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association,
and Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America
James Dobson of Focus on the Family, unhappy with Dole's pro-life credentials,
threatened to bolt the GOP and take his followers with him. He didn't,
but said later that he personally voted for far-right candidate Howard
Phillips. Dobson periodically threatens to bolt the GOP, and in this
role follows in the footsteps of Robert Grant and Gary Jarmin of Christian
Voice, and an earlier Pat Robertson, before he became a go-with-the-winner
GOP loyalist.16 In
1998, when Dobson addressed the annual meeting of the secretive Council
for National Policy, he stated that if the GOP abandoned or watered down
its antiabortion position, he would leave the Party and take as many
with him as possible.17
In the 2000 GOP primaries, the Christian Right vote was still deeply
divided among Dan Quayle, Gary Bauer, Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, and
Alan Keyes. Not one of these was able to match the vote-getting capacity
of conventional politicians like George W. Bush (who had Ralph Reed as
a campaign consultant) and Senator John McCain, and Bush ultimately won
the votes of conservative Christians who opted for someone who seemed
both acceptable and able to win the election. Interestingly, after the
election, Morton Blackwell told U.S News and World Report that
in the fall of 1999, a group of conservative leaders met with then-candidate
Bush seeking a promise that if elected, he would appoint movement conservatives
to his cabinet. Blackwell said, "He is keeping that promise" and
that "John Ashcroft is an example of that."18
The Christian Right's rally to Bush throws into sharp relief the divisions
within the movement, not only among candidates but also among parties.
Pat Buchanan, after failing to break out of the pack in the GOP primaries,
bolted the party and seized the presidential nomination of the weak and
disorganized Reform Party. Buchanan's strident "culture wars" style
and views were opposed by an eclectic group aligned with party founder
Ross Perot, who generally supported libertarian John Hagelin. Hagelin
was also the candidate of the Natural Law Party, dominated by devotees
of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi the leader of Transcendental Meditation or TM.
In the wake of these odd developments, some longtime Reform Party leaders
endorsed Green Party candidate Ralph Nader whose anti-corporate, clean
elections, and good government messages resonated with many Perot voters.
Buchanan spent most of the Reform Party's $12.5 million in federal matching
campaign funds advertising on conservative Christian radio stations,
in hopes of attracting voters who found the GOP ticket's public stands
on abortion, civil unions, and immigration too mushy. But the vast majority
of Christian Right voters seemed more determined to end the Clinton/Gore
era than to quibble about the conservative and prolife bona fides of
George W. Bush. Buchanan and fellow Christian Rightist Howard Phillips,
the presidential candidate of the Constitution Party, (formerly the U.S
Taxpayers Party) received only about one percent of the vote.
The Constitution Party, which was on the ballot in 41 states in 2000,
draws a fiercely loyal but tiny constituency of Christian Patriots, Christian
Reconstructionists, home schoolers, and militant anti-abortion activists.19 Over
three presidential election cycles, it has been unable to attract candidates
of national standing. The party unsuccessfully wooed Pat Buchanan in
1992 and 1996. In 2000, U.S. Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH) briefly bolted the
GOP and sought the party's nomination before returning to the GOP fold.
Party founder Howard Phillips ran as the party-building standard bearer
in each race, speaking mostly to small groups and home-schooling conventions
and drawing little media attention. After the 2000 vote, party chairman
James Clymer of Pennsylvania wrote that he believed that "for every
vote that Howard Phillips received in this election there are many times
that number of people who support our efforts, yet could not bring themselves
to vote for our candidate due to fear of Al Gore."20
In 2000 others in the Christian Right also were unwilling to sublimate
purity of principle to pragmatism. During the campaign, Judy Brown of
the American Life League declared "George W. Bush is NOT pro-life!" and
denounced the Christian Coalition, National Right to Life Committee,
and the Republicans for Life PAC for supporting Bush.21 Syndicated
conservative columnist Kathleen Parker argued simply "abortion is
here to stay-even if the Republicans take the White House." She
predicted that RU-486, the "abortion pill," would make abortion
more widely accessible and more palatable politically, and also would
reduce the gruesome photo-driven politics of anti-abortion militancy.
She noted that Bush de-emphasized the issue in the campaign, saying he
would not make abortion a litmus test for Supreme Court candidates. The "debate" about
abortion, Parker concluded, "is over."22 While
the "debate" shows no signs of such a conclusion, Brown and
Parker may be correct that, given Bush's mixed record on abortion, it
is conceivable that he might appoint moderate justices in the mold of
Justice David Souter, despite his declared admiration of the reactionary
Justice Clarence Thomas. Early in the Bush administration, there are
contradictory messages about abortion; just as the GOP itself remains
a house divided on the issue. For example, while Attorney General John
Ashcroft is fiercely antiabortion, he claimed in his confirmation hearings
that he would make no effort to overturn Roe v. Wade and would
enforce the Federal Entrance to Clinics Act (FACE).
Factional squabbling surfaced early in the life of the Bush administration.
The Republican National Coalition for Life denounced Bush's first ten
major appointments, declaring that "with just one exception" Bush
senior advisors and cabinet nominations were "either publicly supportive
of a mother's right to kill her unborn baby or [that] we have found no
evidence that they are in any way pro life."23 Although
this was before the nomination of John Ashcroft for Attorney General
and Tommy Thompson for Health & Human Services, it underscores the
nature of the GOP as a necessarily uneasy coalition. Similarly, Pat Robertson
and other Christian right leaders expressed outrage and opposition to
federal funding of some religious groups of which they did not approve,
such as the Church of Scientology, the Hare Krishna's, and the Nation
of Islam, and concern that enforcement of federal civil right laws would
be tied to receipt of federal funds.24
Divergent positions on abortion within the Christian Right demonstrate
that, even as the centripetal force of the center in current U.S. politics
pulls the vast majority of the Christian Right toward compromise, it
also causes others to spin off into radicalized formations.
The militant wing of the antiabortion movement is retrenching and threatening
more profound assaults on access to abortion through the ongoing harassment
of abortion providers, from picketing and obstruction to lawsuits, death
threats and strategic assassination. Increasingly, advocates of violence
are publicly presenting themselves as the underground "Army of God," self-described
members of which have committed numerous violent crimes against abortion
providers.25 While
some of this public posturing is psychological warfare, it operates in
tandem with the reality of the 20-year war of attrition waged by the
violent antiabortion underground. Indeed, in the first two weeks of 2001,
shots were fired through the windows of a Planned Parenthood clinic in
Kansas, and an attempted arson occurred at a Planned Parenthood clinic
in Michigan. During the 1990s, even as federal law enforcement increased
their protection of abortion providers from harassment and physical violence,
the war of attrition kept pace.
James Kopp and Eric Rudolph, two men who have been indicted for anti-abortion
related murders, were on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Kopp was arrested
on March 29th in Paris for the alleged killing of Dr. Barnett
Slepian, an abortion provider near Buffalo, NY on October 23, 1998. A
day prior to the arrest "the federal court of appeals in San Francisco
ruled that a Web site and `wanted' posters calling abortion doctors `baby
butchers'... are protected by the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech.
The Web site, the Nuremburg Files, which targeted Dr. Barnett Slepian,
did not constitute a specific threat, the justices said....The doctor's
name was crossed out on the Nuremburg Files Web site shortly after the
murder."26 The
decade old cross-fertilization between militant anti-abortion activism,
the militia movement and Christian Patriotism in the 1990s27 continues
into the new century. For example, longtime Operation Rescue militants
Joe Foreman and Bruce Murch have founded a community near Roanoke, Virginia that
engages in paramilitary training.28 In
Idaho, a militia group has emerged, that makes abortion a high priority
and featuring a fairly sophisticated website.29 This
group, the Freedom Fighter Militia, is typical of a new style and network
of militia groups that seem to hybridize the contemporary Christian Right
and the old style Christian Patriots. The Roanoke-based Virginia Citizens
Militia encapsulated this confluence when it declared: "We believe
in conservative Judeo-Christian values and constitutional rights!! We
know that abortion and homosexuality are the greatest moral evils of
our day! All men should be like `Promise Keepers' because a strong Christian
family equals a strong Virginia." They also claim to be open to
anyone regardless of race, gender or religious orientation.30
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