The Religious Right Goes to Washington

By Sarah Posner, AlterNet. Posted September 30, 2006.

Republican presidential candidates fell all over themselve to pander to religious conservatives at last weekend's "Values Voter Summit" -- billed as the most important political event in the Christian Right's history. An AlterNet reporter covered the scene.

Republicans are staking their hopes of holding on to power in the November elections on looking tough on terror. But at the Family Research Council's first "Values Voters Summit" in Washington last week, billed as the most important political event in the Christian Right's history, a showcase of 2008 Republican presidential hopefuls, and, tellingly, the president's own spokesman, all focused not on terrorists or war or global jihad, but on the threat posed to America by two men getting married. Under the stress of possibly losing its grip (on power), the party of the so-called "values voter" has collapsed under the weight of its own moral dishonesty.

Speakers at the conference fired up the audience, but there was virtually no mention of the occupation of Iraq, spiraling health care costs, a huge housing bubble, or the daily economic struggles many Americans face. Those things pale in comparison to the real threats: a declining culture, and the shadowy network of feminists and Hollywood executives that are responsible for its fall.