Other Columns by Paul M. Weyrich
Paul M. Weyrich Bio

Printer-Friendly Version

Page 2 of 3

This distant relationship between the Republicans and people of moral convictions continued. Meanwhile, the Democrats made it clear to the Black churches that it wholeheartedly supported the civil rights movement, which Bobby Kennedy and others called the "moral imperative of our time."

Along came the Carter administration, which wanted to go after what was termed de facto segregation in Christian schools. For example, if a Christian school in Kearney, Nebraska had adopted a policy of welcoming people of any race, color or creed who could afford the tuition but had no Black pupils, even though there were only eight percent Blacks in the community, the school would be guilty of so called de facto segregation. The Carter administration's justice department wanted to deny that school tax-exempt status. That provided the opportunity for the Republican leadership to identify with the plight of the Christian schools, although many Republican leaders were against doing so. Meanwhile, the pro-life movement had managed to get language about protecting life inserted into the 1976 GOP platform. (The pro-life movement also tried and came remarkably close in the Democratic platform as there were many pro-life Democrats who had supported Carter on the grounds that he would back the Hyde Amendment, which banned federal funds for abortion.) The pro-lifers went full tilt in 1980 and got added to that year's Republican Party platform a provision calling for a constitutional amendment to prohibit abortion. In 1980 in churches all over America, especially in the South, the party platforms were posted side-by-side. By that time the radical feminists had taken over the Democratic Party so the contrast between the two parties on the moral issues was remarkable. Ronald Reagan not only won in a landslide but the GOP won 13 Senate seats including those in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina.

The slow process of adding the term "traditional moral values" to the litany of what the Republican Party stood for had begun. Finally the Republicans had in George W. Bush a candidate who understood the power of the so-called religious right. His 2004 campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, was the first in GOP history to target religious conservatives as part of the President's coalition. Mehlman is now GOP National Party Chairman and seems determined to continue that effort. Values voters were crucial to the GOP Presidential election in 2004 as well as to adding GOP seats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The coalition of values voters with the traditional economic base of the GOP appeared to be a key to victories in the long term.

Now comes former Senator Jack Danforth, our most recent ambassador to the United Nations. Danforth says the Republican Party has been taken over by zealots of the religious right and the party should return to the way it was before the religious right got involved. Mind you, values voters amount to a quarter of the entire GOP coalition. Danforth, who is an extremely wealthy member of the establishment, also is an Episcopal priest. No doubt he was chosen to say what has been on the minds of establishment types since the great unwashed were let into the GOP's inner sanctum.

>> Continued -- Page 1 2 3