[675] in libertarians
The Religious Right - Threat, Menace, or ...?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Derek Rose)
Tue Feb 14 00:30:56 1995
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 00:38:27 -0500
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
From: Derek Rose <rosed@world.std.com>
Cc: Chris Whitten <lfb@panix.com>, Todd Seavey <Todd_Seavey@kaplan.com>,
libernet@dartmouth.edu
For those of you who worry about the GOP being "joined at the hip" to the
Religious Right, I suggest you read Monday's Wall Street Journal. Ralph
Reed, the executive director of the Christian Coalition (a 1.25 million
member religious right organization that Newsweek ranks alongside Bill
Kristol & his thinktank in engineering the Republican victory last Nov.),
has a really remarkable op-ed piece in it.
He notes that the battle predicted between economic conservatives and
religious conservatives after the cold war's end never happened. Why?
"The reasons for this remarkable unity are numerous -- the visionary
leadership of Newt Gingrich, the growing savvy and sophistication of
religious conservatives, and a consensus across ideological lines on the
need for values that inform our private and public lives. But even more
important is a new respect for a rather old-fashioned wisdom: that in an
essentially conservative society, traditionalist ends can be advanced
through libertarian means.
"Religious conservatives eschew efforts to replace the social engineering
of teh left with their own government-run Promised Land. Moses delivered
the 10 Commandments, not a 10-point legislative program. The values we
advocate are learned, not mandated. They are values taught around kitchen
tables, on fathers' knees, during bedtime stories, and at midnight mass and
sabbath services. These values suffer when weighed down by the heavy hand
of government. Therefore, anything that reduces the role of the Washington
bureacracy in the lives of families is a step in the right direction."
Reed continues to launch into a spirited defense of the Contract w/
America, and goes on to advocate four major priorities for the new
Congress:
1. make gov't the friend not the foe of the family; specifically, end
subsidies for divorce, planned parenthood, and CPB, NEH, NEA, etc.
2. Radically downsizing government, including abolishing the dept. of education.
3. replacing the welfare state w/ a community and faith-based opportunity
society.
4. secure religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all citizens,
including voluntary school prayer and the right to freely express ones
faith in public places.
As a libertarian, the only thing I really disagree with is his endorsement
of the Contract w/ America's proposed tougher laws against pornography,
which he says are "assaulting decency"; other than that one issue he really
is very libertarian. I have an electronic copy at work; I'll send it to
anyone who wants it.
-Derek.
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Derek Rose rosed@world.std.com
