Using Pulpits to Power the GOP [View All]

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Tactic Uses Pulpits to Power the GOP
Evangelical leaders, on the first day of a rally, ask pastors to advocate for a social conservative agenda despite recent IRS investigations.
By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer
September 23, 2006

WASHINGTON — Worried that discontent among conservatives and the lack of a clear standard-bearer to follow President Bush might cost Republicans in November, top evangelical leaders pleaded with their followers Friday to put aside frustrations and turn out for GOP candidates. The appeals, coming on the opening day of a weekend-long rally and strategy conference, included entreaties to pastors to use their pulpits on behalf of the social conservative agenda. "There is no choice, because the alternative is terrible," said James C. Dobson, founder of the influential group Focus on the Family, referring to the potential for a Democratic takeover of the House and Senate in November.

Dobson's organization recently launched a major voter recruitment drive in eight battleground states that will include placing registration tables outside Sunday worship services at conservative churches. The Values Voter Summit — which will include appearances by several potential GOP presidential hopefuls — underscores evangelicals' growing power in national politics. The agenda serves as a road map of their tactics for energizing voters, including sessions on fighting gay marriage, attacking Hollywood liberalism and denouncing embryonic stem-cell research.

Kicking off the conference Friday, Dobson joined other evangelical chieftains in lobbying pastors to feel more free to advocate for conservative causes from the pulpit despite recent investigations by the Internal Revenue Service into alleged partisan activities by churches. One such investigation has ensnared the liberal All Saints Church in Pasadena, over a sermon denouncing the Iraq war shortly before the 2004 election. One session today is to focus on the "role of churches in political issues." On Friday, Dobson and a representative from an evangelical-backed legal group told the crowd that churches were free to distribute fliers and other materials promoting stands on issues.

"You still can't endorse candidates, but you can do voter guides," Dobson said. "You can do all kinds of things."

snip:
Three possible presidential candidates, along with White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, were applauded when they raised the issue. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a likely White House contender who is viewed skeptically by many evangelical leaders because he is a Mormon and is viewed as a moderate, said the country "desperately" needed a federal gay marriage ban. He won cheers as he spoke of his opposition to a ruling by his home state's highest court upholding same-sex marriage. Similar themes were sounded by three other presidential possibilities: Sens. George Allen of Virginia and Sam Brownback of Kansas and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Allen — whose race for reelection this year has tightened after his use of the word "macaca," a racial slur in some countries, and his reaction to revelations that he has Jewish heritage — was boisterously applauded when he asked the conference activists to come to Virginia and assist with that state's initiative this year to ban gay marriage.

article (reg req'd):
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-values23sep23,0,1182332.story?coll=la-home-nation