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 Editorials | Issues | October 2007 
Rabid Right Threatens Revolt
 Rachel Zoll - Associated Press
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 |  | A third-party run would be a long shot, requiring millions of dollars and challenges to ballot access. Such a bid could prove disastrous for the GOP by splitting the vote. |  | |
Some of the nation's most politically influential conservative Christians, alarmed by the prospect of a Republican presidential nominee who supports abortion rights, are considering backing a third-party candidate.
More than 40 Christian conservatives attended a meeting Saturday in Salt Lake City to discuss the possibility, and planned more gatherings on how they should move forward, according to Richard A. Viguerie, the direct-mail expert and longtime conservative activist.
Rudy Giuliani, who supports abortion rights and gay rights, leads in national polls of the Republican presidential candidates. Campaigning in New Jersey on Monday, Giuliani brushed aside talk of an upstart effort by religious conservatives.
"I'm working on one party right now — the Republican Party," Giuliani said. "I believe we are reaching out very, very well to Republicans. The emphasis is on fiscal conservatism, which brings Republicans together."
Other participants in the meeting included James Dobson, founder of the Focus on the Family evangelical ministry in Colorado Springs, Colo., and, according to Viguerie, Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, a conservative policy group in Washington.
Dobson attended the meeting, but is not yet participating in any planning for a third party, said Gary Schneeberger, a spokesman for Focus on the Family Action. Dobson and others spoke out against the idea at the meeting, even though both major parties could nominate candidates who back abortion rights and other policies that conservative Christians oppose, Schneeberger said.
A spokesman for Perkins did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
Viguerie would not give specifics of the proposal or reveal additional names of participants, but said President Bush "would not have been elected in '04 without the people in that room."
"There is such jaundiced feelings about any promises or commitments from any Republican leaders," he said in a phone interview. "You could almost cut the anger and the frustration with a knife in that room it's so strong. Because they don't know what else to do, they're talking third party."
A spokesman for the Republican National Committee did not respond to a request for comment.
The participants were in Salt Lake City for a separate meeting of the secretive Council for National Policy, a group of conservative business, religious and political leaders that was co-founded years ago by Tim LaHaye, author of the "Left Behind" series of books. Vice President Dick Cheney flew into the city Friday to address the group, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
Christian conservatives, who hold considerable sway in the Republican Party, have been deeply unhappy about the field of GOP presidential candidates.
Dobson has said he wouldn't support Giuliani, calling the former New York mayor an "unapologetic supporter of abortion on demand." Dobson has also rejected former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson as wrong on social issues, and wouldn't back John McCain because of the Arizona senator's opposition to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Viguerie said conservatives "are still open" to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, but said, "we haven't seen anything that guarantees that he will hold to the positions that he's articulating." Romney has been questioned about his record on gay rights.
However, the proposal to consider a third-party candidate comes from anger that the Republicans whom Christians have helped elect for decades have failed to act on policy issues important to evangelicals on abortion, marriage and school prayer.
"Conservatives have been treated like a mistress as long as any of us can remember," Viguerie said. "They'll have lots of private meetings with us, tell us how much they appreciate it and how much they value us, but if you see me on the street please don't speak with me."
A third-party run would be a long shot, requiring millions of dollars and challenges to ballot access. Such a bid could prove disastrous for the GOP by splitting the vote.
Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, was not at the meeting. But he said no one floating the idea of a third party thinks there's much chance the candidate would win. He considers the proposal a reaction to "moguls of the Republican establishment" who think conservative Christians will support the GOP no matter what.
"A lot of them won't hold their nose and do it," Land said.
Associated Press Writer Angela Delli Santi in Dennis Township, N.J., contributed to this report.
High Court Says No to New Rights for Church Groups
David G. Savage - LATimes
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Justices rebuff a quest for services in a library, along with a Catholic group's effort to avoid paying for employees' birth control.
Washington - The Supreme Court on Monday refused to expand the rights of church groups, turning down appeals in a pair of cases.
In the first case, the justices declined to hear a free-speech claim from an evangelical minister in Northern California who wanted to hold worship services in a public library meeting room. In the second, they refused to hear a freedom-of-religion claim from Catholic Charities in New York, which objected to a state law requiring that employees' prescription drug coverage include contraceptives. The cases were on a long list dismissed on opening day of the court's term.
In the past, the high court has said public officials may not discriminate against "religious speech" by, for example, excluding a church group from meeting in the evening at a high school auditorium that is open to other community organizations.
Lawyers for the Alliance Defense Fund, the Christian Legal Society and the National Assn. of Evangelicals had urged the court to go a step further and rule that officials may not exclude "religious services" from public buildings. They called it unconstitutional to distinguish between "speech" and "services."
They backed an appeal filed by Pastor Hattie Hopkins, who wanted to hold prayer and worship services in a meeting room in a public library in Antioch, northeast of Oakland.
"Religious worship is not a second-class form of expression that the government may ban from a forum generally open for indistinguishable 'secular' expression," said lawyers for Hopkins and the Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries.
The issue split the federal courts in California. A judge ruled the library must open its meeting room to Hopkins, but a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, 2-1.
The 1st Amendment does not require that the library be "transformed into an occasional house of worship," said Judge Richard A. Paez of Los Angeles, a Clinton appointee. There is a difference between "religious speech" and a "sermon," another judge said.
The full 9th Circuit refused to rehear the case, but seven of its judges filed a dissent. The ruling against Hopkins "turned a blind eye to blatant viewpoint discrimination" by singling out "what it calls 'mere religious worship' for exclusion," wrote Judge Jay S. Bybee, a Bush appointee.
By turning down the appeal, the Supreme Court let stand the 9th Circuit panel's decision.
In the New York case, lawyers for the plaintiff said Catholic Charities should not be forced "to finance conduct that the church teaches is sinful."
Besides New York, more than 20 states (including California) have laws that require employers to include contraceptives in drug coverage. Though churches themselves are exempt from the laws, the exemption does not extend to church-related groups.
"If the state can compel church entities to subsidize contraceptives in violation of their religious beliefs, it can compel them to subsidize abortions as well," the lawyers argued.
The justices turned down a similar challenge to California's prescription-drug law in 2004. |
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