CHRISTIAN COALITION TAKEOVER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

THINGS ARE SELDOM WHAT THEY SEEM - The Life and Death of NSSM 200 - Chapter 16: "THE CHRISTIAN COALITION TAKEOVER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY - Index
A survey by Campaigns & Elections magazine reported [in 1994] that the Christian Right exercised complete domination of Republican parties in 13 states and considerable control in 18 others.266a These facts shocked moderate Republicans and Democrats alike. It was no longer possible for the Coalition to keep its stealth campaign hidden."

At the Christian Coalition's 1995 "Road to Victory" Conference, Pat Robertson revealed his dream when the Coalition was founded in 1991. Writes Joseph L. Conn for Church & State: "His wish list was far from modest: a conservative majority in both houses of Congress, 30 state governorships in conservative hands and a conservative in the White House, all by 1996, and working control of one of the major political parties by 1994. During his September 8 speech, Robertson gleefully recalled those goals and boasted that his movement is not only on track, it's ahead of schedule on some points...."266b

A Church & State editorial on the Conference reported: "Pat Robertson triumphantly recounted the great distance the Christian Coalition has traveled in a short amount of time: `I said we would have a significant voice -- actually I said something else, but Ralph [Reed] said I can't say that because we got press -- I said we would have a significant voice in one of the political parties by 1994 and looks like we made that one.' Robertson reminded the audience of the findings of the poll conducted by Campaigns & Elections, which had shocked so many. What did Coalition Executive Director Reed want Robertson to keep under wraps? Five years ago the TV preacher said, `we want...as soon as possible to see a working majority of the Republican Party in the hands of pro-family Christians by 1996.'"266c

"Throughout the...conference, organizational leaders, activists and political hangers-on made it clear that the Christian Coalition is not just another interest group in American public life. It is a highly partisan religio-political army wielding a disproportionate influence in U.S. politics."266b

Rob Boston writing for Church & State after attending the September 8-9, 1995 "Road to Victory" Conference in Washington, D.C.: "...once again Reed and Robertson are being less than honest. Christian Coalition activists, in fact, have formed a partisan machine that aims to seize control of the Republican Party and place Coalition allies in public office." Deception is openly touted: "At breakout sessions, conference participants were schooled in the art of concealing their ties to the Christian Coalition, in a continuing pattern of `stealth politics.'" Boston reports, "Speaker Cathe Halford, training director for the Texas Christian Coalition, declared: `You all know we're in a war, we're in a spiritual war, a war for our culture, however you want to say it....Don't get intimidated that this is a big political machine you're part of. Just try to focus on those people as your neighbors.'"266d

Boston described one session, "Building a Neighborhood Organization": "In fact, the session had little to do with neighborhood activism; it was devoted to explaining how to get at least one Christian Coalition operative in every county precinct and how to compile information on voters, with an eye toward turning out those who are likely to support Christian Coalition candidates on election day."266d This is the heart of the Coalition strategy.

The results thus far: According to a report prepared by Americans United and the Interfaith Alliance Foundation, 198 members of the U.S. Congress vote with the Christian Coalition at least 86 percent of the time. At a press conference, Lynn criticized the "tangled -- and growing -- links between the Christian Coalition and the Republican Party...the Christian Coalition now calls the shots for a major political party."266b

Arthur Jones of the National Catholic Reporter, concludes: "Robertson and Reed have emerged as a cunningly dynamic duo that understands the weaknesses of the soft underbelly of the U.S. democratic system..."266e The weakness, of course, is that a determined minority can identify voters in great numbers who will vote its way if they get to the polls, then by insuring that all vote, it can sway the majority of elections. However, given the enormous Catholic commitment to the Christian Coalition one must wonder who actually discovered this soft underbelly.

The implications of this takeover for American politics at the national, state and local levels are enormous, affecting us all. Thousands of politicians at all levels whose positions have opposed the Vatican have been victims of the plan, significantly changing the American political landscape. No politician has benefited more than Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. This fact is documented elsewhere.267-[270]

As noted earlier, the ultimate objective of the Vatican's political machine is passage of the Human Life Amendment (HLA). As Jack Nelson pointed out, "the 1992 GOP platform called for a `human life amendment' to the Constitution, outlawing abortion in all circumstances." It should be noted that the HLA need not be enforced to meet the needs of the Vatican. The Vatican requires only that the civil law not conflict with canon law. Then papal authority and civil authority are not pitted against one another. It is only legal abortion that threatens Papal authority.

We all have the illusion, carefully crafted by Papal propaganda, that "lives of the unborn" and "morality" are the issues. This is simply not so. It is survival of the Catholic institution and Papal power that is the issue, not the "lives of the unborn" or anything else. All countries in Latin America (all are Catholic) have higher abortion rates than the U.S. Nothing is said by the Church there. If abortion were the real issue, the Church would be speaking out even louder in Latin America than in the U.S. Only in the U.S., where it is legal, is it an important issue for the Church. Of course, few American Protestants are aware of this fact.
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DISUNITING OF AMERICA - Index

In his 1993 national bestseller, The Disuniting of America, 306 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. never mentions the Catholic Church though he does refer to religious groups. In her book, Population Politics, Abernethy does not mention the Catholic Church in her treatment of the subject of the disuniting of America either.307 In fact, neither identifies who might be behind this phenomenon. They both indicate that the effort is sophisticated, is widespread, has a lot of resources, and is hell-bent to succeed. But for some reason, they do not identify who the culprits might be.

Who stands to gain from the disuniting of America? Who is threatened by a united, organized, committed America? Who stands to gain from social disorganization in America? Who has the sophistication, resources, organization and motivation to set about disuniting America?

Certainly the Vatican is a sophisticated political institution and recognizes that America's bonds of national cohesion are fragile and that factionalism can tear our country apart. Obviously, the Vatican would be gravely threatened by an influential, united, organized America committed to population growth control. It would be hard to deny that the Catholic Church has a vested interest in ethnic identification and that it has repudiated the ideal of assimilation, an American institution.

Schlesinger recognizes a serious danger relevant to the death of NSSM 200 which I will discuss further at the end of this chapter: "And when a vocal and visible minority pledges primary allegiance to their groups, whether ethnic, sexual, religious, or...political, it presents a threat to the brittle bonds of national identity that hold this diverse and fractious society together."308 The bishops also recognize this and have used this threat on occasions too numerous to count. They are certainly prepared to use it again and again.

"The bicentennial of American independence, the centennial of the Statue of Liberty, the restoration of Ellis Island," says Schlesinger, "all turned from tributes to the melting pot into extravaganzas of ethnic distinctiveness."309 There was a similar outcome with the 500th anniversary celebration of the arrival of Columbus in the West Indies (not America) in 1992. I watched each of these four tributes in disbelief. It looked as if these events were staged by the Catholic Church. Support for this suspicion can be found in a later section on presidents Reagan and Bush.

Schlesinger identifies an ethnic upsurge today that "threatens to become a counter-revolution against the original theory of America as `one people,' a common culture, a single nation."310 He goes on to say, "The cult of ethnicity exaggerates differences, intensifies resentments and antagonisms, drives ever deeper the awful wedges between races and nationalities. The endgame is self-pity and self-ghettoization."311 And further, "The cult of ethnicity has reversed the movement of American history, producing a nation of minorities -- or at least of minority spokesmen -- less interested in joining with the majority in common endeavor than in declaring their alienation...."312 In the end, the cult of ethnicity defines the republic not as a polity of individuals but as a congeries of distinct and inviolable cultures.313 This set of circumstances has set the stage for the fragmentation and anarchy that we already see in our inner cities today.

The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 has not worked out as planned, except if the Catholic bishops were the real planners, an intriguing possibility. In practice, bilingual education retards rather than expedites the movement of Hispanic children into the English-speaking world and it promotes segregation more than it does integration. It nourishes self-ghettoization. Bilingualism encourages concentrations of Hispanics to stay together and not be integrated.314

As a result, Catholic bishops now claim to speak for the millions of Hispanics living in the U.S., a status from which the bishops derive power -- political power. This appears to be the only positive outcome of this Act for anybody and the bishops continue to fiercely protect the Act which has squandered billions of tax dollars. Through this Act, the bishops have made significant progress in transforming the United States into a more segregated society.

Schlesinger also notes that when a religious group claims a right to approve or veto anything that is taught in public schools, the fateful line is crossed between cultural pluralism and @BULLET = ethnocentrism.315 The Vatican successfully claimed this right and vetoed in public schools all mention of the anti-democratic and anti-American teachings of the Catholic Church and all mention of history which places the Catholic Church in a negative light. As a result, we have an American populace that is blatently ignorant of the true nature of the Catholic Church, the threat posed by the Church to the rights we claim as Americans, as well as the lengths to which the Church has gone in the past to protect its interests.

There is scant question that an attack on the common American identity is underway and that this attack has been instigated by the Vatican to promote its own interests which are presently seriously threatened. The bishops have made progress in transforming the United States into a more segregated society. They have succeeded in their efforts to impose ethnocentric, Afrocentric, and bilingual curricula on public schools, designed to hold minority children out of American society and have remarkably advanced the fragmentation of American life.

There are several advantages the bishops derive from this arrangement. One obvious advantage depends on acceptance of the bishops' proposition that they speak for these groups. At present, this proposition is thoughtlessly accepted by the media. Fragmentation will make population policies, such as those suggested by the Rockefeller Commission and NSSM 200, far more difficult to agree on and implement, a fact the bishops surely recognize. If the bishops find that anarchy in the U.S. is necessary to protect the Papacy (a likely proposition), this fragmentation sets the stage.

According to Schlesinger, "The American creed envisages a nation composed of individuals making their own choices and accountable to themselves, not a nation based on inviolable ethnic communities"316 -- accountable to their bishops or whomever. He continues, "The Constitution turns on individual rights, not on group rights" -- which can leave out the bishops if their faithful choose not to follow, as with family planning and abortion.

The American creed, which he defines as the "the civic culture -- the very assimilating, unifying culture,"317 is today under siege because we let the Catholic bishops degrade history -- European, Latin American, North American, and Church -- allowing them to dictate its contents. Unaware of the dangers that we would have learned from a full and truthful history of the Church, we have permitted the bishops and their representatives to run grandly amok in the halls of our government. This has resulted in Papal influence on U.S. public policy making beyond what most Americans can imagine. Due to this interference, we are increasingly threatened with a grave global population problem.
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