Bush's Religious Right Swat Team Takes Aim at Methodists

By Frederick Clarkson
topic: Battle For Mainstream Faith
section:Front Page

It seems that whenever the Bush administration has a religion problem, a special political swat team turns up to handle it.

When the National Association of Evangelicals were preparing a statement expressing concern about global warming the Institute on Religion and Democracy helped lead a campaign of religious right leaders to derail the statement. When gay families, organized by Soulforce, planned to participate in the White House Easter Egg Roll, an IRD staffer published a shrill "expose" in the neoconservative Weekly Standard. And when Methodist ministers and Bishops organized a campaign to stop the placement of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and related Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, (including a petition signed by 10,000 Methodists so far including 14 bishops and 600 clergy) -- IRD once again stepped in on behalf of Team Bush, issuing a press release denouncing the effort, and organizing a letter-writing campaign in support of the complex.