Religion and Politics

* Cal Thomas and I are usually poles apart politically. But I resonate strongly with his articulate statement (“Gospel Is Being Held Hostage to Politics,” Commentary, March 1) about religion and politics. I am a family-values liberal, if that is not too oxymoronic: “family values” in the true sense, not the bigoted exclusivity which that term usually connotes. I deplore the disappearance of moral standards, the deterioration of family stability (I have to say that in my observation, the highest incidence of stable unions and real commitment might be among same-sex partners) and the mindless sleaze with which we are deluged by the entertainment media.

But the political agenda of the religious right is more frightening to me than the societal ills which are its ostensible target. As Thomas states so well, we are talking here about the lure of secular power. One has the uncomfortable feeling that, given their way, these political extremists would establish in the U.S. a theocracy not too unlike that which the mullahs control in Iran.

NORM CADMAN

Claremont

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Thomas keeps saying that President Clinton was successful at “dividing the country along racial lines.” I think somebody needs to point out to Cal that the only people doing the dividing over the last seven years were the conservative Republicans. The reason minorities have not embraced the GOP is simply because the GOP has not embraced minorities by focusing on solutions that can offer a better quality of life, and the Democrats have at least attempted to do so.

Who are the Republicans going to blame all their problems on after Clinton is gone?

RICH STEEN

Manhattan Beach