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"Losing my faith in humanity ... one neocon at a time."

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Hypocrisy thy name is the Religious Right

posted by Ron Beasley at 2/27/2005 11:21:00 AM

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If there was ever any doubt that the Radical Religious Right organizations were simply fronts for the Rovian Republican machine rather than the keepers of "moral values" that doubt has been eliminated by their silence on the Jeff Gannon affair.
Why have the 'traditional family values' folks erected a wall of silence around the Gannon scandal?
They were livid over SpongeBob Square Pants' participation in a video advocating tolerance, and fuming about Buster the Bunny's visit to a lesbian household. So where's the outrage from the Christian right over the Jeff Gannon Affair? Despite a chunk of time having passed since the Gannon Affair was first uncovered, Christian right organizations are still cloaked in silence. As of February 24, there wasn't any news about the Gannon Affair available on the Web sites of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, or the Traditional Values Coalition. As best as I could determine, no special alerts about the Gannon Affair have been issued; and no campaigns have been launched to get to the bottom of the matter.
Bill Berkowitz called Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family, The Family Research Council, The Traditional Values Coalition, The Free Congress Foundation, Town Hall, American Family Association, Charisma News Service and the Christian Response Network. He received no comment or did not get a call back from any of them. A wall of silence.
Unable to speak with representatives from Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council and the Traditional Values Coalition, I turned to Joe Conn of American United for Separation of Church and State and John Aravosis, the creator of Americablog.

In a telephone interview, Conn said he wasn't surprised that there hasn't been any response from Christian right organizations because "The religious right is pretty much a team player when it comes to the Bush Administration. Unless it's an issue like same-sex marriage -- a core issue of their agenda -- they will give the president a pass."

"Clearly this is an example of the religious right's hypocrisy," Conn point out. "If it was Bill Clinton they would be in total uproar."

Via e-mail, I asked Aravosis why he thought the Christian right was being silent about the Gannon Affair.

"Because they're hypocrites," he wrote in an e-mail. "They know this scandal is hurting Bush and they put politics ahead of their God. That's how petty and un-Christian they are."
"Morale Values" NO, political hackery YES; that's the real Religious Right.