Subject: The New Republi<CC>an Party -- Column by Patricia Nell Warren
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 16:07:49 -0400

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NEWS YOU DIDN'T SEE ON TV

A commentary by Patricia Nell Warren                      
8/27/96

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THE REPUBLICANS GO REPUBLI<CC>AN

By Patricia Nell Warren

As the Democratic convention makes news, the Republican convention
has quickly faded from view.  After all, as entertainment  it didn't hold a 
torch to the Olympics. As a "big tent," it was more a pup tent, with San
Diego
police deployed to arrest dissenters who distributed leaflets.  

But as a benchmark of Christian Coalition power,  the Republican convention 
shouldn't be forgotten.  We must now speak of the RepubliCCan party.

The CC doesn't just want the White House.  It  wants to legislate
Bible-based "morals"  in the U.S.  The Old Testament has a sizeable
platform set in solid concrete.   But  the CC  are pushing only those
 "moral"
issues that they think will galvanize large voting demographics in '96. 
Candidates are bashing  "immorality" of gangs, illegal aliens, homosexuals,
drug-users, welfare moms, repeat criminals, etc.-- none of  whom are
viewed as not having a swing vote.   Conversely, the CC risk defeat
if they push an issue, however "moral",  that alienates big voting blocs.
So  the CC spin doctors are evidently as play-it-safe, cynical and 
pragmatic as any.

To see how  this play-it-safe "morals" campaigning works, let's look at
two key issues: homosexuality and adultery.  The Bible's plank 
is clear: death penalty for both. 
 
Technically, the CC should be casting out of the RepubliCCan party
every known adulterer.  But the  Party hasn't said boo about adultery 
-- other than throwing a few dead cats at President Clinton for his alleged 
philandering.  Yet at the convention,  RepubliCCans made a big show of 
banishing open homosexuals from any participation in the balloon-fest.

The same play-safe strategy operates on a broader scale.
Galvanized by the religious right, some states are moving to re-arm  old 
sodomy laws.  This means long sentences, forced therapy, castration -- i.e.
grinding non-heterosexuals to a bloody pulp in the machinery of our 
prisons.  Some religious activists even demand death for homosexuals.
But no such penalties  for adulterers!  Jack Kemp  wants to bar 
homosexuals from teaching in schools -- but he's evidently okay with 
adulterers teaching.  Adulterers get a fair shake  in employment, benefits, 
housing.  They even get  custody of  children!  Indeed, heterosexual
adulterers have  unlimited use and abuse of  the rights of
marriage... whilst homosexuals who want to marry get 
a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Our armed forces -- whose votes Bob Dole is so diligently courting --
are equally two-faced on sexual "morals".   They continue to hound 
gay men and lesbians into court martials on sodomy charges.  Military
law makes adultery an equally punishable offense. But when was the last
time you saw a TV anchor reporting a court martial for adultery?  

Why is the religious right so politically soft on adultery?

Reason No. 1  is  obvious.  Millions of  heterosexual adulterers are
potential church-joiners and money-givers to the CC cause.   And a call for
national crackdown on adultery would  alienate a ton of guilty  voters.
 Statistics show  that a goodly  percentage of American voters two-time their
spouses  -- including that most active voters are male. The CC know they need
the hetero male vote  to win.

Less obvious, but compelling, is Reason No. 2.  This and that pastor in the
Bible lobby has committed adultery.  I have listened to  talk shows where
pastors openly discussed their extramarital lapses on the air.  But when was
the last time any adulterous
pastor was deprived of his or her  life -- liberty, civil rights, benefits,
job equality -- because of past "immorality"?  Even Jim Bakker would have
stayed out of prison if his "crime" were adultery.   It's just not
politically useful for the religious-right movement to clean house on all
their adulterous leaders.

The Bible says other  things that stand to be law too, if the CC
gets a chance to keep its campaign promises.  Americans had better
start reading the Bible carefully before November 2, if they want a sneak 
preview of new "moral" legislation that will come barreling out of a
RepubliCCan-
dominated Congress, with a RepubliCCan President ready to sign bills.

Come to think of it, maybe a RepubliCCan victory is what this country needs.
 
Americans have demanded more "morals" without inspecting the morals-brokers
closely. Maybe  that  legal machinery needs to start grinding more solid
respectable active mainstream voters  into pulp.  Maybe a few million people
need to get legally hamburgered for not worshipping God, observing the
Sabbath, respecting parents, having premarital sex...or other things the
Bible demands death for.

It  can't happen here?  In a country where decades of Democrat big government
have innured citizens to a disturbing degree  of surveillance  and control of
 their lives?  Where homeless people can do six months in jail  for simply
sleeping on the sidewalk? 
All we need is for the RepubliCCans to capture  that monstrous Democratic
infrastructure, and put it to their own "morals"-driven uses. 

Patricia Nell Warren is author of <The Front Runner> and other 
bestselling books, as well as a widely published commentator.  
Her publisher is Wildcat Press. 
Copyright (c) 1996 by Patricia Nell Warren. All Rights Reserved. 

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