GOP Has Pulpit at Meeting of Religious Right

The annual strategy conference of the Christian Coalition met this weekend in the shadow of a large question mark that has long hovered over the political efforts of religious conservatives:

Can they channel the moral passions that infuse their grass-roots adherents into mainstream politics without turning off more voters than they convert?

Beholding the 3,000 delegates to the gathering, which concluded Saturday, Pat Robertson, founder of the group, hailed them as representatives of “one of the most powerful political forces that has ever been in the history of America.”

Supporting Robertson’s bullish appraisal was the flock of prominent Republicans who addressed the conference. All sought support for GOP candidates this fall, in some cases with an eye toward advancing their own presidential ambitions in 1996.

What’s more, as even People for the American Way, a liberal group that has set itself up as a watchdog of the political efforts of religious conservatives, conceded last week in a poll on social attitudes, most Americans “embrace traditional moral and religious values.”

Nevertheless, the sticking point for the religious right in politics, as the poll results suggest and some analysts believe, is that many of the specific policies it backs foster controversy--chief among them, opposition to abortion. Moreover, the militant rhetoric of its partisans also stirs alarm.

The net result, past experience shows, is that often the candidates of the religious right do well in organizational battles but falter before a broader electorate. Thus, last week in Minnesota, Republican gubernatorial candidate Allen Quist, who, backed by conservative Christians, had won the endorsement of the state GOP convention, lost the primary election to incumbent Republican Gov. Arne Carlson.

To avoid antagonizing potential supporters, a number of the speakers here sought to depict their goals as broadly and blandly as possible. All Christian conservatives want, Robertson contended, is “a return to the kind of government America had during the Eisenhower Administration in the 1950s.”

“For that we are called the ‘radical right,’ ” he said. “I don’t think that’s radical at all. I think that’s just common sense.”

Robertson also sought to stress the ecumenical appeal of his 1.4-million member group. He contended that it speaks not only for 40 million or 50 million Protestant evangelicals but also “30 or 40 million pro-family Roman Catholics.”

Notorious Watergate-era figure G. Gordon Liddy, now a radio talk show host, advised conference-goers Saturday that Jews agree with their positions on many issues. “Do not exclude them from your thoughts as natural allies,” he said. “Don’t frighten them by going around saying, ‘This is a Christian country.’ Remember you need all the allies you can get because your enemies are many and we are few.”

Nearly every speaker here echoed the lament of American Red Cross President Elizabeth Hanford Dole appearing as a surrogate for her husband, Senate Republican leader and 1996 presidential prospect Bob Dole, that “we have come dangerously close to eroding the moral underpinnings of our society.”

But at least one speaker, former drug czar William J. Bennett, sought to put the religious conservative concern about one issue, gay rights, in a broader perspective, suggesting that it might make more sense to focus on the breakdown of marriages.

“If you look in terms of damage to the children of America you cannot compare the homosexual movement, the gay rights movement, in terms of damage to what divorce has done,” Bennett said.

Nevertheless, a number of speakers criticized President Clinton, a frequent target, for his efforts to lift the ban on gays serving in the armed forces.

And on the issue of abortion rights, Phyllis Schlafly, a longtime foe of the feminist movement, made clear that she was not prepared to back down from the party’s stand against abortion, a position embodied in its last four presidential platforms. Referring to efforts by moderate Republicans to abandon that stance, she said: “You and I must not let that happen.”

“Next year and the year after I’ll see you at all those Republican Party primaries and caucuses where you and I, working together, will prove that a majority of the Republican Party is pro-life.”

In another apparent attempt to soften the sharp edges of the conservative Christian movement, Bennett suggested that moral objectives cannot always be reached through political means. After depicting the various problems besetting American society from the “coarsening of the culture” to the high crime rate, he said: “The solution to these problems, I have become increasingly convinced, lies beyond politics. It lies in a fundamental change of the heart.”

“Stay involved in politics,” Bennett advised the audience, which cheered him lustily through most of his talk. “But do it as your civic duty, not as your hope for perfection. Your hope for perfection is in God’s love.”

But much of the rhetoric here had to do with the changes that could be wrought through the political arena.

“There is a conservative tidal wave about to hit the shores of America and that means victory in ’94 and goodby Clinton in ‘96,” former Vice President Dan Quayle, another 1996 presidential prospect, declared to a thunderous ovation. “People who were never active before are coming forward and saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

“We are here in the nation’s capital to send a message,” declared Ralph Reed, executive director of the coalition. “And that message is that we are fed up with Clinton-style liberalism and in six weeks that comes to an end.”

To achieve that objective, Reed said the organization plans to spend $1 million to $3 million through its local chapters to register voters, inform them on issues and get them to the polls on Election Day, Nov. 8.

The coalition already has distributed 10 million voting guides spelling out where candidates stand on such issues as the balanced budget amendment, abortion rights, gun control and gay rights. And just before Labor Day, the Christian Coalition sent a letter to 250,000 churches around the country asking for their cooperation in its registration drive.

It also plans to distribute another 30 million voter guides in 300 different versions for state and local elections. “When you get a voter guide in the hands of voters,” D.J. Gribbin, director of field operations, coached the conference attendees, “that makes a truly great difference.”