CHRISTIANS EAT LIONS IN 2004 ELECTION

Here’s one for Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not: The Democrats have spent decades making life miserable for Christians. On Election Day, Christians returned the favor.

Since at least the mid-1970s, the Democratic Party and its allies have devoted themselves to alternately sneering at and savaging Christians.

They’ve depicted the followers of Jesus – evangelical Protestants and traditional Catholics in particular – as superstitious degenerates, bigots, trailer-park misogynists, both sexually repressed and hypocritically lecherous, and a gang of Torquemada wannabes who constitute a clear and present danger to democracy and the 21st century.

The only problem the left seems to have is in deciding whether Christians are more Elmer Gantry or Elmer Fud.

They’ve derided their values, indoctrinated their children, given their teenaged sons condoms (and told their teenaged daughters how to get an abortion without their parents knowledge or consent), used their tax dollars to fund “art” like a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine, eliminated the mildest public expressions of faith, and tried to overturn 3,300 years of Judeo-Christian tradition by mandating gay marriage from the bench.

After all of this, the Democrats are shocked to discover that they aren’t wildly popular in the Bible Belt. Where, oh where did we go wrong, they moan, as George W. rallies Christian support to become the first president since 1936 to win reelection and increase his party’s representation in both houses of Congress.

The media believe Bush’s opposition to gay marriage swept the president to victory. While the issue – and the presence of 11 traditional marriage ballot questions (all of which carried, with an average vote of over 70%) – clearly played a role in Bush’s reelection, the war between the Democratic party and religious America extends far beyond the marriage debate.

To the amazement of The New York Times, 22% of voters told exit pollsters that they were motivated by “values” or moral questions – more than those who based their votes on the economy or the war on terrorism. Bush was endorsed by over 80% of values-driven voters.

The phenomenon cut across denominational lines. Running against the first Catholic presidential candidate (at least in name) since 1960, Bush won the votes of 51% of Catholics. In Florida, Catholics voted for Bush over the alleged altar boy, 55% to 45%. In Ohio, Catholics who attend services weekly chose Bush 62% to 38%. Who says Republicans don’t have mass appeal?

As a general rule, in the 2004 election – the more a voter went to church, the redder he got.

Those who never attend religious services voted for Kerry over Bush, 62% to 36%. The Massachusetts Senator – who vowed he would never make a policy decision based on an article of faith – also carried those who went to church a few times a year (54% to 45%).

Bush got the support of voters who visit a house of worship a few times a month (50% to 49%), once a week (58%) and more than once a week (64%). For the Democratic Party, churchgoing America is enemy territory.

It wasn’t always so. Formerly, Catholics loyal to Rome were a bedrock of the Democratic Party. Once upon a time, it was easier to find a Protestant in Dublin than a Republican at a Knight of Columbus meeting or a gathering of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

Likewise evangelicals. In that bygone era, the Bible Belt was cinched around the waist of the party that nominated William Jennings Bryan three times. Born-again Christians helped to keep the South solidly Democratic.

The great political awakening started in the 1970s, when the Carter administration attacked the tax-status of Christian schools. A milestone was reached in 1980, when Ronald Reagan told a gathering of evangelical pastors in Dallas: “You can’t endorse me, but I’m going to endorse you.”

For observant Catholics, a sure sign that they were persona non grata in the Democratic Party came at its 1992 nominating convention. By then, the party had become so dogmatically pro-abortion that then Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey was denied an opportunity to address the convention because of his pro-life position.

Ron Brown, the convention’s organizer, told the popular governor of one of the 10 largest states, “Your views are out of line with those of most Americans.” If “most Americans” is here defined as the subscription list of Ms. Magazine, Brown was correct.

In the latest evolution of liberal anti-Catholicism, Senate Democrats have established what amounts to a religious test for public office. Kennedy and his cohorts have announced that, no matter how qualified, a pro-life judicial nominee will be automatically rejected. They might as well hang a sign on the door of every federal courthouse in the land – “Catholics Need Not Apply.”

The foregoing caused Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of Denver, to suggest that a Catholic who voted for Kerry should go to confession before he received communion.

The left seems to devote considerable energy to devising new and ingenuous way to outrage, horrify, aggravate and otherwise annoy anyone who takes the Bible seriously.

Exhibit A is a 51-page study (“Beyond the Pledge of Allegiance: Hostility to Religious Expression in the Public Square”) compiled by the Liberty Legal Institute of Plano, Texas and presented to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights In October.

According to the subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. John Cornyn (R, Texas): “The campaign to purge expressions of faith from the public square is pervasive, national and well organized. The report not only contains page after page and example after example of hostility to religious expression, it also notes how this effort to cleanse the public square of all religious expressions is carefully orchestrated and organized by some of the nation’s leading liberal special interests.” All of which are aligned with the Democratic Party.

In St. Louis, Missouri, a 12-year-old student was reprimanded for praying over his lunch.

A public-school teacher in Houston punished two sisters for bringing bibles to class, confiscated the bibles and threw them in the trash and threatened to report their parents to the state’s Child Protective Services. At the same school, another student was forbidden to read a bible in his free time and forced to remove a Ten Commandments dustcover from a textbook.

Public high school students in Lynn, Massachusetts were suspended for distributing candy canes with Bible verses attached.

At a New Jersey veterans’ cemetery, a member of an honor guard, and a Vietnam vet, was fired for saying “God bless you and this family” to the family of a deceased veteran.

In Logan County, Kentucky, a public library worker was fired for refusing to remove a cross-pendant necklace. She was later reinstated, by court order.

Among the chief culprits in this religious-cleansing campaign, the report names the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way (PAW) and Americans United for the (so-called) Separation of Church and State.

Now, let’s see: which of the two major parties is more closely identified with the anti-God jihad? Who’s more likely to keynote the ACLU’s annual dinner, Rush Limbaugh or Bill Maher? This is an open-book exam, but the score will count toward your final grade.

The following is a sampling of postings on the PAW website : “Bush’s Judicial Threats,” “The Bush Administration vs. The Constitution,” “Bush’s Statement on Judges Demonstrates ‘Orwellian’ Doublespeak,” “Bush’s Tax and Budget Plans: Radical and Irresponsible,” and a fawning review of David Corn’s “The Lies of George Bush.” Despite the liberal assessment of their intelligence, Christians can connect the dots between assaults on the president and attacks on them.

Hollywood rarely misses a chance to ridicule Christians or denigrate their faith. The pathetic comedy “Saved,” just released on video and DVD – which is set in a Christian academy and makes religious kids look like Nazi nincompoops – is the most recent example of Hollywood’s contempt for Christians and their values.

But when devout Catholic Mel Gibson made a movie celebrating his faith (“The Passion”), both the producer and his work were subjected to withering attacks – including charges of anti-Semitism -- by critics and commentators.

The news media’s disdain for orthodox Christians was illustrated by a throw-away line in a front-page story in The Washington Post a decade ago. Reporter Michael Weisskopf contemptuously characterized conservative Christians as, “poor, uneducated and easy to command.” This is an ugly stereotype, akin to saying that poor, ignorant darkies like to tap-dance while eating fried chicken.

Said condescension was manifested again in the 2000 presidential election, when the president named Jesus as his favorite philosopher. You could hear the media guffaws – from the newsroom of The New York Times to the editorial department of The L.A. Times.

Senate Democrats have launched unprecedented filibusters to block Bush’s judicial nominations. Federal judges are overwhelmingly liberal (activist and elitist) and Democrats are determined to keep them that way.

Since 1963, it’s banished prayer from the public schools, rejected a moment of silent meditation (lest someone be encouraged to meditate on God), outlawed non-denominational prayers at graduation ceremonies and student-initiated prayers at football games, prohibited posting The Ten Commandments on school bulletin boards, ordered removal of Ten Commandments monuments, and come close to taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance (required by the 9th. Circuit Appeals Court, reversed by the Supreme Court, on technical grounds).

At the same time, the Supreme Court or lower federal courts have struck down anti-sodomy laws and the most modest restraints on abortion, including parental-notification (again, in some jurisdictions) and attempts to ban partial-birth abortion. In Kerry country, the judiciary mandated homosexual marriage.

The courts are telling Christians: While we will not permit even symbolic affirmations of your faith, we have every right to force our faith on you.

In Academia, Christians are besieged. At least a dozen colleges and universities have withdrawn recognition of Christian clubs, for violating the school’s non-discrimination code, by refusing to admit homosexuals and non-Christians as members – notwithstanding that to do so would violate the basic tenets of their faith.

From start to finish, the war on Christianity is a blue-country operation. It is relentlessly waged by the Democrats’ core constituencies: the entertainment industry, journalists, the public education establishment (every four years, the endorsement of the Democratic nominee by the National Education Association is a pro forma matter), college administrators and the courts.

Christians would have to be masochistic not to revolt against this constant abuse, and totally lacking in discernment not to see it all leading to a nation where faith is marginalized, humanistic values are enshrined in government and the culture, and hate-crimes laws are used to punish dissent.

Evangelical Christians have been in the arena a long time. In terms of the values vote, the past election could be summed up by the following hypothetical headline: “In 2004: Christians Eat Lions.”

1:55 PM 2/9/1998

Walker, European editor of Britain's Guardian, is author of
The President We Deserve: Bill Clinton's Rise, Falls and Comebacks.

Inquisitor Starr like a figure out of history's dungeon

By MARTIN WALKER
WHAT an ironic and original way America has found of celebrating the 500th anniversary of the darkest spirits of the Renaissance, those twin apostles of intolerance who brought us the Grand Inquisitor and the real Bonfire of the Vanities: Torquemada and Savonarola.

Modern Spain has been perplexed to find a way to commemorate Tomas de Torquemada, the Dominican monk who used his post as royal chaplain to persuade the pope to grant him the authority to kindle the fires of the Inquisition.

Now we have the solution, certainly as far as the White House is concerned: Spain can kick off its ceremonies with America's candidate for a new Grand Inquisitor, Kenneth W. Starr. The special prosecutor would show how far we have come since those barbaric days. There are no burnings now, yet in the implacable pursuit, Torquemada might recognize a tamed but kindred spirit.

And, in Italy, even the city of Florence, which he once ruled, has found the right tone elusive in its bid to commemorate the Puritan mystic Savonarola, burned at the stake 500 years ago in May. Now we have it: President Clinton should just about be taking the stand in the Paula Corbin Jones trial on the exact anniversary.

Savonarola seized power in that glorious Florence of the Renaissance, the city of Leonardo de Vinci and Michelangelo. Its energies and lust for beauty and riches made Florence as essential to the formation of our modern character as Rome.

To Savonarola, it was the very fount of wickedness, and he sought to scourge it clean. These days, his weapon would be a TV channel. Then, it was political opportunism; he used the invasion of the French to provoke a political revolution to establish the Christian Commonwealth.

Once Savonarola was in power, his first task was repression of all vice and frivolity. Gambling was outlawed. Harlots were compulsorily reformed. In a burst of cultivated civic hysteria, the rich and splendid were summoned to toss their garments and jewels into the original Bonfire of the Vanities.

Torquemada and Savonarola live on because they have become archetypes: of fanaticism, of intolerance, of the unshakable faith that the end justifies the means. They are awful warnings, which remind us of the need to cherish our sense of proportion and of the ridiculous.

We know from the totalitarian nightmares of our own century what this can mean: the implacable interrogator who will never be satisfied; the guilt that spreads to a target's family and friends.

It is one of America's proudest achievements that it confronted and overcame both Nazism and communism, those nightmares of history from which we are finally supposed to have awoken. Yet, one illuminating aspect of the latest pursuit of alleged sexual antics in the White House is the way it poses the question: Are we really done with the joyless inheritance of the dreadful inquisitors?

Perhaps, we have not finished with the probe that never stops, in a cause whose importance sweeps coldly aside any consideration of cost or proportion or mercy. It was just 500 years since the deaths of these two forbiddingly devout men. Not far away at all, when you think of it.

The year 1492 has been hammered into most American children as that protean moment when Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain to discover the Americas. But it was also the year the Jews of Spain were deported by the Inquisition.

It is at this point that the fashionable metaphor of Starr as the new Grand Inquisitor strains beyond breaking point. America does not have a Torquemada on the loose. Keeping Susan McDougal in prison because she will not tell him what he wants to hear is not even a pale shadow of the tactics of the Holy Office.

And if we startle at learning of the way our modern special prosecutor deems that the honor of the republic requires false friends with hidden microphones, and questions a young woman for eight hours without the benefit of a lawyer, well, there is no doubt that Starr's intentions are pure and authorized by law, to ensure that the White House is not occupied by a murderer, a crook or a sinner.

By asserting that the White House aide Vincent W. Foster Jr. did commit suicide while in deep depression, Starr has cleared up the first point. After more than three years and $30 million, he has shown that some of Clinton's old Arkansas acquaintances and business associates were crooks, which was pretty clear already. But the president, so far, seems innocent of much beyond gullibility and unwise friendships. And if Clinton be a sinner, the opinion polls are clear that the American public is not much bothered. They were electing a president, not a saint.

At this point, when we consider the gap emerging between Starr's legal and moral purposes, the metaphor of Torquemada and Savonarola becomes useful. It is less because the squeamish find a faint American echo of the Grand Inquisitor in the relentless pursuit of the Clintons, but because of the shocked, shocked, reaction of some Americans to the reports of serial sexual depravity in the White House.

The question is really the degree of moral horror displayed. This is, after all, an America where pornography is the biggest entertainment industry after gambling. At $8 billion a year, the porn trade grosses more than the box office, video rentals and all the drama theater, art galleries and concert halls combined.

The contrast is extraordinary between a Puritan America that reels in primmest shock from the sexual antics of its leaders and a lewdly licentious America whose strip malls offer peep shows, lap dancing, massage parlors and "Girls, Girls, Girls." And the intriguing feature of the latest Clinton firestorm is the way these two Americas of Bible Belt and lewdly loosened belts have suddenly collided, with the evening news opening with warnings about the following story being too steamy for the children.

Savonarola would love to get his teeth into this modern Sodom. And our Savonarola wannabes fulminate on the religious channels, just a click away from the "adult" movies and the ads for phone sex. It was a similar collision of the prim and the prurient, or perhaps sacred and profane, which inspired Savonarola to plunge Florence into an orgy of sanctimony.

But the lesson of Savonarola is that his Florentine republic of Christian fundamentalists could not last. Great cities are not long ruled from a monk's cell. Great wealth will not be forever gainsaid. People, however furiously their Puritan passions may flame, cannot indefinitely withstand the temptations of the flesh.

They grow tired of the moral rigors of a Savonarola. They become ashamed of the excesses of a Torquemada. They understand that Christianity has survived, not because it has such implacably austere defenders, but because it was inspired by one who embraced an adulteress and said, "Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone."

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Walker, European editor of Britain's Guardian, is author of The President We Deserve: Bill Clinton's Rise, Falls and Comebacks.

Inquisitor Starr like a figure out of history's dungeon

Walker, European editor of Britain's Guardian, is author of
The President We Deserve: Bill Clinton's Rise, Falls and Comebacks.