Conclusion

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The Bush Administration will provide numerous opportunities for advancing the religious and political agenda of the Christian Right. The free market schemes that were pioneered in the past two decades-such as "outsourcing" government services to private businesses, deregulation, and privatization-are being replicated in the form of redirecting government social welfare resources to "faith based charities," proposals to finance religious charter schools, and vouchers for private religious education and even home schooling. These redistributive Republican policies are also part of the GOP's political pay-off to the Christian Right. The assignment of Cabinet and sub-Cabinet posts to Christian Rightists is but the tip of the iceberg of the political patronage a major Republican constituency may reasonably expect. As a major power within the Bush Administration, the Christian Right will enjoy exactly the benefits it needs to assure its further institutionalization at all levels.

Frederick Clarkson is the author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, (1997) and of the forthcoming Profiles In Terrorism: Twenty Years of Anti-Abortion Violence, both from Common Courage Press.

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