San Francisco Chronicle                                  September 15, 1993

                Un-Christian Behavior By the Religious Right

                                 Molly Ivins

Austin - Micheal Kinsley was complaining recently that he can't understand
the frequent complaint that America is hostile to religion.  Kinsley notes
that there simply is not hostility toward religion per se in the mainstream
media.

And it is true, alas, that the rather peppy discussions about whether God
exists have now disappeared from all but the most marginal publications.
It's a shame we have no William Brann or H.L. Mencken around to mock some
of the more patent idiocies advanced in the name of organized religion.

But you would never guess that anti-religious sentiment in this country has
been marginalized to the point of disappearance by listening to the TV
preachers.

A recent diatribe by Pat Robertson gives the flavor of the culture of
victimization in full flower:  "We need $20 a month from every viewer,
which is paramount in stopping this repeat of history!  Just like what Nazi
Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical
christians! ... It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-biased media and
the homosexuals who want to destroy all Christians!  Wholesale abuse and
discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America
today!  More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in our
history!"  (Brother Robertson has clearly not been reading up on slavery in
America or the Indian wars lately.)

"And it is happening here and now!  Same thing, but directed against
Christians by the liberal government and media!  Send money today or these
liberals will be putting Christians like you and me in concentration
camps!"

Granted, the Rev. Robertson was indulging in the hyperbole we have come to
expect of a TV preacher trying to get viewers to send in $20, but a more
telling example of Christian bigotry was the reception given to Democratic
Chairman David Wilhelm who was invited to address the Christian Coalition
convention.

Wilhelm made a very personal speech, putting his own faith in view and
relating it to his beliefs as a Democrat.  The Christian Coalition
responded by booing every mention of Democratic Party values, President
Clinton and tolerance, although Wilhelm did reduce them to uncomfortable
silence on a couple of points.

After talking about the efforts to help families embodied in Clinton's
budget package, Wilhelm said, "I believe with all my heart that if there
were a Christian position on the president's budget, it was to support it.
But I am not going to stand here and tell you that you are bad Christians
for opposing it.  And frankly, when I disagree with you, you had better not
tell me that I'm a bad Christian."

And there is the nub of the matter.  As Gandhi said, those who believe that
religion and politics don't mix understand neither.  I assume the Christian
Coalition and I are in agreement that those who dismiss any religiously-
based belief as somehow improper in discussion of public policy are
themselves in error.  But as Kinsley notes, they cannot have it both ways.
"If religious voices want to be welcome in the debate, they must accept
vigorous dissent without identifying it as anti-religious prejudice."

On the basis of the Christian Coalition's reception of Wilhelm's thoughtful
speech, I would say that particular set of Christians has quite a long way
to go in grasping that elementary principle of democracy.  But then, as
Billy Carter once said, "Some Christians deserve to be thrown to the
lions."