I posted an essay today at the Rockridge Institute’s online conference Spiritual Progressives: A Dialogue on Values and Building a Movement. Discussions today focus on such matters as religion and politics and separation of church and state. The conference is ongoing, May 9th-May 20th.

Here is my contribution.

How to deal with the matter of religion and public life was one of the central questions facing the framers of the Constitution as they invented a new nation. (I have written about this on my web site and in my book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy.)

For 150 years, the colonies had, for the most part, been little theocracies, run by different established churches. The framers knew well the problems posed by religious supremacism, although they certainly did not call it that in those days. They understood what can happen when religions wield state power. And they knew that in order to bind together the potentially fractious new nation they needed to inoculate it against the ravages of religious bigotry and worse — the religious warfare that had wracked Europe for a millennium.

What did they do? Well, in the first place they made no mention of God in the Constitution. What they did do, was to put in Article 6, a key phrase, “…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” (Cornell University historian Issack Kramnick details the history of Article 6 in his book The Godless Constitution.)

What this meant was that for the first time in the history of the world, religious orientation would not be a consideration as to one’s qualifications for office. By logical extension, this also meant that one’s religious identity would be irrelevant to one’s status as a citizen. This clause, set in motion the disestablishment of the churches, by making religious equality the law of the land. It was a radical idea, and it passed overwhelmingly and with little debate. When the Constitution was sent to the state legislatures for ratification, the absence of mention of God and Christianity in the Constitution led the the Christian Right of the day to fight ratification. They lost.

While it was deeply significant that Catholics, atheists, Quakers, and Jews would enjoy equal status as citizens in the United States along with Protestants of various sorts, they key was that people had the right to believe differently. Religious freedom, as we think of it now, is the right of individual conscience. In terms of our role as citizens this is perhaps best framed as religious equality. I believe that when we are grounded in this history and are able to articulate this history and its contemporary meaning, progressives will own the moral and political high ground in the public debate with the theocratic Christian Right.

The First Amendment built on and clarified the implications of Article 6. But what Article 6 did was to establish the right to believe and to think differently without having to answer to a state sponsored religious orthodoxy. The right to believe and therefore to think differently, is a necessary prerequisite for speaking freely and worshipping freely. It is this right to believe differently that is the foundation for every advance in civil and human rights in our history.

It is also the historical fact of our right to believe differently as enshrined in Article 6 that unravels the false claim that the U.S. was founded as a “Christian nation.” Indeed, it was Christians, members of established churches, who wrote the Constitution and who ratified it in the state legislatures. In that sense it was Christian political leaders who believed so deeply in the need for religious equality that they disestablished their own churches.

If religious equality is to survive in our time, I believe it is necessary for us to reclaim our history and stand up to the historical revisionism of today’s theocratic Christian Right.

During the recent drama surrounding the life and death of Terri Schiavo, it was striking the way that some of the most militant leaders of the antiabortion movement, notably Randall Terry and Fr. Frank Pavone became close advisors of Schiavo’s parents, the Schindlers. What the Schindlers may not have known, is that another man whose counsel they accepted, had also been a media advisor to Paul Hill — a man who advocated the murder of abortion doctors. (This fact was, however, undoubtedly well known to Pavone and Terry.)

Columnist Bill Berkowitz reports that Gary McCullough who is a public relations consultant for Christian Right and antiabortion groups, also served as one of the spokesmen for the Schindlers.

As I reported in my book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, McCullough served as a media advisor to Paul Hill in the early 1990s, when Hill’s group “Defensive Action,” was arguing that killing abortion providers was “justifiable homicide.”

Hill himself went on to murder a doctor and his escort. He was executed by the state of Florida for his crimes.

But that was not the only relationship McCullough has had with the violent wing of the antiabortion movement. McCullough and his Washington, DC-based Christian Communication Network have also served as a liaison and a funding conduit for Prisoners of Christ, a support group for antiabortion activists who been convicted of such crimes as murder, arson, and kidnapping. Some of the convicts were members of the violent, antiabortion Army of God.

Here is part of what I reported about this in Salon.com in January 7, 2002. At the time, I was looking into the relationship between Prisoners of Christ and the Christian Right long distance telephone service, LifeLine. The parent company is called AmeriVision.

“AmeriVision says it has donated over $50 million to its “partners” in the 10 years of its existence. One of those partners is Prisoners of Christ — whose address is a private postal box four blocks from the White House. This reporter called LifeLine in December as a prospective customer and was told that LifeLine had cut checks averaging between $40 and $50 a month to Prisoners of Christ since May of 1996, and that the money flows to a Washington D.C. public relations group called Christian Communication Network headed by Gary McCullough — the longtime principal of Prisoners of Christ. (McCullough’s group maintains a web link to the Prisoners of Christ site.) When Salon called McCullough for comment about the LifeLine connection, he said, “We are a small potato in that pie and I prefer not to comment,” then hung up. When Salon contacted LifeLine again for an official response, we were told that under the privacy rules set forth by the Federal Communications Commission, they “cannot give out customer or donor information.”

(If you are not a Salon.com subscriber, to view the whole article, you will need to get a “day pass” and then search for my article, “Our Own Terror Cells.” Obtaining a day pass simply means watching a short advertisement.

McCullough’s web site no longer mentions Prisoners of Christ, however the web archive “Wayback Machine” shows (at the bottom of the page) the link to Prisoners of Christ in October 2001, for anyone who would like to see for themselves.

Since my report on Salon, the Prisoners of Christ list as it was then, is no more. (Domestic terrorists and their apologists have gone out of fashion since 9/11.) However, a similar list of violent offenders is still maintained by the Army of God.

McCullough’s Christian Comunication Network continues to operate as a Washington, DC-based PR and consulting firm.

Meanwhile, the issue of how best to describe the various elements of the Christian Right has become an issue, and the role of Paul Hill and a number of antiabortion militants epitomizes the matter. For example, the label “extremist” is widely, loosely and often inaccurately applied to various individuals and sectors of the Christian Right. However, if the term applies to anyone, it ought to apply to Paul Hill and the members of the Army of God, who are truly extremists — people who have taken extreme action to further their arguably extreme political and religious goals.

But Chip Berlet, writing on the new blog site, Talk to Action, has a post discussing how problematic the use of the word “extremist” and “extremism” can be.

“Ultimately, the concept of ‘extremism’ is of little value in studying prejudice and ethnoviolence,” he writes. “Sociologist Jerome Himmelstein argues the term ‘extremism’ is at best a characterization that ‘tells us nothing substantive about the people it labels,’ and at worst the term ‘paints a false picture.’ Often, analysts use the term ‘extremism’ in a way that implies that ideas and methodologies are always linked. This is not the case.”

Berlet goes on to note that “people and groups that promote supremacy, prejudice, discrimination, bigotry, and hate…” are also sometimes “people and groups that use intimidation and violence against a targeted group or individual based on their perceived identity.” Using this kind of language, he says, “teaches people to see the dynamics of societal oppression…” which he sees as vital to comabatting these oppressions.

However, he notes that when we resort to labels like “extremist” we are then allowing people to be dismissive of “ethnoviolence as caused by not-like-us ‘extremists’ from hate groups.” And if Himmselstein is correct, we are obscuring more than we are revealing about those whom we label as extremists. I believe that this kind of one-size-fits all approach to political language is reductionist. It fails to help us distinguis between fact and propaganda, insight and characterization, description and smear job.

Paul Hill and many others in the theocratic Christian Right are religious supremacists. They have targeted those who disagree with them, with “intimidation and violence.” We don’t need empty characterizations like the term “radical religious extremist” (invented by a PR firm to characterize a wide swath of Christian Right and hate groups) to describe the views and actions of Paul Hill and other antiabortion militants — whose activities comprise a continuum of organized intimidation.

But it is also important to note that many of the people whom McCullough has represented are overt or covert theocrats — as committed to the overthrow of constitutional democracy as we know it, as they are to ending the constitutional right to abortion (as I detail in Eternal Hostility.)

It has been my experience over the past ten or fifteen years, that it has been difficult to talk with people about the wider problems of the theocratic Christian Right, because the conversation too often bogs down on what to call “them.” There is no one word or phrase that will cover all occasions.

I think that it is far more important that whatever words we use — that we know what they mean, and use them well.

Friends, we have been talking in circles for years while the theocratic Christian Right has gained a vastly disproportionate role in public life — and has even become the dominant faction in the federal government. Part of the reason for thier success is that they have worked hard and done well. Another part of the reason is that the rest of us, the vast majority of the population that does not agree with its theocratic agenda and intolerant attitudes towards others, have not done as good a job as we should have, and could have, in response.

Well those days are over. It is time to start turning talk to action. Towards that end, some friends and colleagues and I have launched a project to do just that. We call it Talk to Action.

We started out wondering, what if there was a place where you go to could have a considered conversation about what to do about the Christian Right? And what if it was a place that sought to model civil discourse on the web instead of flaunting incivility? And… what if in that place, arguing about theism vs. atheism was off topic — way of topic — because we face an imminent threat to constitutional democracy, and we just don’t have time for that? What if someone facing a Christian Right school board takeover in their town wanted to find like-minded people who had faced the same problem? What if you found that the tactics employed by some of your allies were ineffective at best? …wouldn’t it be great if there was a place you could go to talk about stuff like that?

Well, that place is being built. The ground has been broken, the foundation has been laid, and you are invited over for the grand tour.

We are already posting on our temporary blog site — while we develop a site that is organized much like The Daily Kos, (using “Scoop” software) to be able to manage wide-ranging conversations in this field. I don’t know exactly when our Phase II will be ready. But I think it’s fair to say that it’s Coming Soon!

Today is a great day to come over for a first visit. Chip Berlet, a leading expert on the religious right, and Senior Analyst at Political Research Associates, has an thought provoking post on the problem of labeling and demonization — of conservative Christians. He feels some of the name calling by Democratic aligned interest groups over the past decade has been offensive and counter productive. “I think it’s time to stop using phrases such as ‘religious political extremist’ and ‘radical religious right,’” he declares. “A lot of my friends and allies use this language, but what are friends for if they can’t tell you when they think you are wrong? I also think that we should be asking folks in the Christian Right to stop pasting labels on those of us who are liberal or progressive. I’m an equal opportunity curmudgeon.”

Come on over to Talk to Action and find out why Chip thinks these labels are the wrong way to go.

Meanwhile, I want to stress that allof us know that web-based conversation is not a panacea. But we also think we are onto something. If you think you might agree, read on.

We have written an initial statement of purpose, which is posted on the Talk to Action site. Here are some excerpts:

“… we are launching a project which will empower the strength that lies in community — an internet website which will provide a national meeting place, a commons where all concerned about the Christian Right’s march towards dominion can meet, debate and strategize, learn, and be catalyzed to action. With your help, we will bring the revolutionary ability of internet group discussion websites to allow citizens to find information, strength, and common cause on our website.”

“We will reach out to and welcome all who share our concerns. However, we do not seek to merely foster conversation. That is necessary but insufficient. It is not enough to know about the theocratic Christian Right — if we hold our values to be important; if we value constitutional democracy, we need to turn our conversations into action; we need to talk about what kinds of actions to take, how to make those actions most effective, and how to fuse those individual actions together in campaigns and coordinated strategies…. Fully in that spirit, we do not view this effort as in any way a replacement for the fine work of many organizations already working to educate about, and counter the religious right. Rather, we seek to provide a site that will enhance the work of all of these groups — a place where all of us may converse and strategize with one another. We can help people in remote locations with their struggles; inform each other of important developments around the country; and break down the barriers of issues, religion, institution, and levels of knowledge or political sophistication that divide us and make it difficult for us to develop common understandings and ways of communicating that strengthen our efforts.”

“This project is just beginning, and like any worthwhile activity it will take time, planning, and concerted efforts to fully realize the vision. If you would like to be notified when we reach our next stage of development, or if you have knowledge and skills to contribute to the effort, please send us an email.”

Or just come over and cheer us on: Talk to Action.

When is a religious organization, not a religious organization?

The answer is when the ABC advertising department (for political or financial reasons) chooses to ignore the obvious.

The ABC television network refused to accept advertising from the mainstream protestant United Church of Christ, citing a policy of not accepting ads from religious organizations. However, it opted to run ads on prime time from Focus on the Family, the largest Christian Right organzation in the U.S. The United Church of Christ, noted the discrepancy, perhaps more politely than I did , in reporting on this. In response to the UCC’s criticism, ABC spokeswoman Susan Sewall told Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service, “The network doesn’t take advertising from religious groups. It’s a long-standing policy.”

It appears Ms. Sewall and the rigorous enforcers of ABC’s ad policy didn’t read — or simply ignored — the Focus on the Family “Mission Statement” — conveniently located at the top of thier web site:

“To cooperate with the Holy Spirit in disseminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible, and, specifically, to accomplish that objective by helping to preserve traditional values and the institution of the family.”

But just in case anyone thinks they didn’t really mean that, the next item is Focus on the Family’s “Guiding Principles.” The first sentence states: “Since Focus on the Family’s primary reason for existence is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a practical outreach to homes, we have firm beliefs about both the Christian faith and the importance of the family.”

Here is the first sentence of what the UCC web site has “About the United Church of Christ”: “Welcome to the United Church of Christ — a community of faith that seeks to respond to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed.”

If we compare the statements of the two groups, would we say that either one of them is not a religious organization? By the standards of the ABC advertising department, if Focus on the Family is not a religious organization, then the United Church of Christ is not a religious organization either — and ABC should apologize and accept their advertisements.

If someone in public life says anything the least bit unusual, especially if they are a liberal or a Democrat, the media are all over it. But if you happen to be Pat Robertson, you get a free pass.

This past Sunday, on ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopolis, Pat Robertson, founder of The Christian Coalition, claimed that the threat posed by the federal judiciary is “probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.”

Does Robertson really believe, as he had written in his recent book, Courting Disaster, that judges pose “the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than al Qaeda, more serious than Nazi Germany and Japan, more serious than the Civil War?”

Robertson: “George, I really believe that.”

The Christian Right’s propaganda campaign is coming to a cresendo, as Christian Right political and religious leaders, “whip-up,” as MoveOn.com put in a letter to members today, “an intense fear and hatred of American judges — including comments from Republican congressmen and senators intimidating, threatening and even justifying outright violence against judges.”

MoveOn wants to take out television ads demanding that House and Senate leaders disassociate themselves from Robertson’s demagogic and crackpot claims. Sounds like a good idea.

But isn’t it amazing how the punditocracy, or for that matter, religion and political reporters are so silent when Pat Robertson says kooky and truly extreme things, even on a national public affairs program? Why does Robertson get a free pass?

Imagine what would happen if a progressive political and religious leader, let’s say Rev. Jesse Jackson said something like that.

I think its time to confront the news media on thier double standard.

Maybe its just that its Spring. The bright yellow forsythia are out everywhere, the leaves on the trees are coming out, and the 2006 race for governor of Massachusetts is really interesting. Arguably, the campaign has been going on for a long time now. But that feels like a good thing. Because change is in the air — and change has been a long time in coming.

A lot of times in electoral politics, campaigns seem like forever. They never end; people wish they were over; they get tired of hearing about it. I know I have felt that way. But this year, I sense that people understand that politics is being reinvented — at least in the Democratic Party. Much is at stake. The GOP has won the governorship four times in a row. We needn’t dwell on the many problems the Democrats have had — except to say that they are solving them.

One important element this year is that one of the greatest obstacles is no longer in the way. Tom Finneran, who got elected as Speaker of the House with the votes of the GOP caucus, is no longer speaker. Rightly or wrongly, Finneran came to symbolize to many, what was wrong with state government. To some he symbolized an antidemocratic style of leadership with his authoritarianism; to others he symbolized the attitude that anyplace in the state west of Worcester was Wyoming; he also came to symbolize the patronage-laden old boy network that seemed to make government cost a lot more than it should — and get a lot less done for the money; he came to symbolize the Democratic Party itself, as its highest ranking official — which was disastrous for the Democratic Party. But now he is gone, as are a number of his loyal supporters in the House.

Meanwhile, the Democratic primary race is getting interesting. Deval Patrick, the 48 year old, African-American, former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Clinton administration — is catching on with Democratic activists statewide. He is new to electoral politics and carefully studying issues that are new to him before jumping in with a list of prefab policy positions. And he is actually listening to what people have to say. (Isn’t that refreshing?) That said, he is also unequivocally, prochoice, pro-marriage equality, and anti-death penalty. As an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, he worked on death row cases. He knows the way the system can fail justice.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Tom Reilly, who has spent the past several years running for governor, remains the front runner and has raised a lot of money — but he has not captured people’s hearts and imagination, and many Dems worry that whatever his record and his views, he cannot win. So many Dems are looking for an alternative. Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi wrote yesterday that Reilly’s candidacy is “the toughest case Tom Reilly will ever have to prove.”

“I see old-time politics that’s getting us nowhere,” Patrick told 300 people who packed the Cape and Islands Democratic Council’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Hyannis. “It’s time for a change and I want to be that agent of change,” he said, according to The Cape Cod Times.

But like anyone else, Patrick will have his challenges. He has spent much of his career so far, working for major corporations, most recently as General Counsel for Coca-Cola. While at Coke, he successfully defended the company against charges that it was complicit in the murder of labor activists at an unaffiliated Coke bottling plant in Columbia. Internally, he pushed for an independent investigation of the whole matter. The CEO at the time agreed. When the CEO reneged, Patrick resigned. Still, a lot of progressive labor activists have questions — and Patrick says he has answers.

The situation in Columbia has been of great concern to students and labor activists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in recent years. We can expect that all this will be aired when Patrick addresses the Amherst Democratic Town Committee on Monday, May 9th at 7pm at the Jones Library (the public library in Amherst). The event is free and open to the public.

If you are a mainstream religious denomination like the United Church of Christ, the ABC television network will reject your good-spirited ad about tolerance and inclusion. If you are theocratic Christian Right organization they will not only accept your ad, they will air a program based on your organization’s child-rearing dogma. “The show was all about Focus on the Family principles,” according to Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family regarding the prime time ABC feature “Supernanny.”

Max Blumenthal tells the whole sorry story, and suggests contacting the Federal Communications Commission to complain. A lively flurry of comments follows on his blog.

Meanwhile the United Church News reports that “In an Associated Press story (May 2), Focus on the Family’s president and CEO, Jim Daly, said the spots were an attempt by his organization to offer ‘faith-based’ advice on parenting, despite the fact that ABC executives have twice denied recent similar requests by the UCC to purchase network time as part of its national advertising campaign.”

“Focus on the Family is clearly a religious organization,” the Rev. Robert Chase, director of the UCC’s communication ministry, told United Church News. ‘Here’s yet another illustration of how a particular narrow agenda makes up the rules as they go along, while another religious viewpoint cannot even purchase time on the people’s airwaves to proclaim an all-inclusive message.”

“In December and March, the three major networks denied a purchasing request by the Cleveland-based UCC. NBC and CBS rejected the UCC’s 30-second ads as ‘too controversial.’ ABC, however, sidestepped the fray by maintaining that it has a blanket policy against all religious advertising… Focus on the Family may be using a non-sectarian come-on, but what kind of assurances can ABC provide that Focus on the Family’s follow-up literature is respectful of all faiths, respectful of non-traditional families, respectful of the non-traditional families, respectful of the one million kids that have same-sex couples as parents?”

A fair question — to which I suspect ABC has no answer.

I also suspect they really don’t care — and I am not sure the best way to make them care.

This past weekend a big conference titled Examining the Agenda of the Religious Far Right was staged in New York. Over 500 people participated including numerous reporters and several documentary film makers. Conference participants heard an unusually diverse range of critical perspectives on the religious right. I was honored to be among the speakers — but I spent alot of time in very worthwhile listening.

Those who wanted to be there, but were unable to come, will be pleased to learn that the conference sponsors plan to edit the conference down to an hour-long film, which they plan to broadcast and make available on DVD. A book based on the main conference presentations may also be in the works. Those who would like to know what I said, can check out these blog posts (here, here and here) which provided much of the substance of my talk.)

An unexpected highlight for me was meeting novelist Kurt Vonnegut, who was among many notables who had come to hear as distinguished, smart and often inconoclastic a bunch of journalists, authors, activists, and academics ever assembled to talk about this subject. Nothing quite like it had ever been done before. We can only hope that it will be done again and again, and all over the country.

A report on the conference by columnist Ellis Henican was featured on page A2 of New York Newsday on Sunday. “There’s plenty of anger and exuberance and outrage in the room,” he observed. “This is New York, after all, where skepticism is always in style. But [Chip] Berlet might be onto something… something that could actually work in the battle against religious extremists, by whatever name: Don’t insult them. Engage them. And don’t back down.”

“The group… gathered for the weekend at the CUNY Graduate Center on West 34th Street. They’re some of the brightest minds and shrewdest strategists among people who look with alarm at the collusion between Christian evangelicals and Republican politicos. The word theocracy keeps coming up.”

The Washington Times, the famously unprofitable pet project of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a longtime advocate of theocracy himself, described the event as a gathering of “Secular humanists and leftist activists” who were maybe engaging in “conspiracy theories.”

The conference was unique in a number of ways. It was not focused on single issues, although many were discussed. It was not sponsored by an organization with a particular institutional interest or point of view to promote or justify, although several presenters were affiliated with institutions that specialize in this area. It was open to fresh and interesting perspectives, and did not insist on unanimity or conformity. It was mostly about information and analysis, but it also emphasized ideas for action — something the attendees made clear they wanted more of.

Rev. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, speaking at the opening session on Friday night, offered a quote that stayed with me. He said “we are the prophets, the disciples and the leaders we have been waiting for.” People came looking for answers, and they got some. But Edgar is right. As citizens, it is up to us to determine the outcome of the central struggles of our time.