Election Watch: Ongoing challenges for religious right

As readers know, Facing South has been closely following the troubled state of the religious right, especially the disaffection setting in among "values voters" going into the November elections.

Many of the polls and news stories about the difficulties religious conservatives face came before the sex scandals swirling around Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL). With 52% of Americans now thinking that the Republican leadership tried to cover it up, the Foley affair could be a knock-out punch to "value voter" turnout.

But conservative columnist George Will points to a long-term problem it presents for the Republican Party, which goes beyond the November 2006 elections:

The problem with claiming to have cornered the market on virtue is that people will get snippy when they spot vice in your ranks. This is one awkward aspect of what is supposed to have been the happy fusion between, but which involves unresolved tensions between, two flavors of conservatism -- Western and Southern.

The former is largely libertarian, holding that pruning big government will allow civil society -- and virtues nourished by it and by the responsibilities of freedom -- to flourish. The Southern, essentially religious, strand of conservatism, is explained by Ryan Sager in his new book "The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party":

"Whereas conservative Christian parents once thought it was inappropriate for public schools to teach their kids about sex, now they want the schools to preach abstinence to children. Whereas conservative Christians used to be unhappy with evolution being taught in public schools, now they want Intelligent Design taught instead (or at least in addition). Whereas conservative Christians used to want the federal government to leave them alone, now they demand that more and more federal funds be directed to local churches and religious groups through Bush's faith-based initiatives program."

To a Republican Party increasingly defined by the ascendancy of the religious right, the Foley episode is doubly deadly.

This is an interesting point, and I think the tension between political scandals and the moral certitude of the religious right may go beyond sex scandals -- although that kind of issue appears to cause the most dissonance among religious conservatives, like Louisiana evangelist Jimmy Swaggart hooking up with a prostitute in 1988.

But what about the other scandals and moral failings that have plagued the movement's anointed political leaders? How will, as blogger American Prophet points out, the Christian Coalition explain the 92% "pro-family" rating they gave to disgraced politician Rep. Tom DeLay, or the perfect 100% they lavished on Rep. Duke Cunningham -- now in the first year of an eight-year sentence for bribery and other violations of the public trust?

Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates is right to caution that the religious right isn't about to disappear. Indeed, today's Boston Globe reveals just how powerful this bloc in American politics remains, scuttling a government contract for AIDS outreach in Africa and Asia by the group CARE, which has worked closely with U.S. officials for six decades:

Senator Rick Santorum , a Pennsylvania Republican, charged last year that CARE was "anti-American" and "promoted a pro-prostitution agenda." Focus on the Family, the religious group headed by James Dobson , said the agency that delivered the contract, the US Agency for International Development, was a "liberal cancer."

The complaining paid off. CARE's $50 million contract is being phased out this year; it has been replaced with a $200 million program of grants that is targeted at faith-based providers, and overseen by USAID itself.

Clearly, recent events have dealt a blow to the confidence of religious conservative voters, with the mid-term elections just four weeks away. The long-term consequences remain to be seen, and in large part depends on how progressives move to capitalize on the situation.