Here are excerpts from the Harpers article:
the Family’s only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast, which it established in 1953 and which, with congressional sponsorship, it continues to organize every February in Washington, D.C. Each year 3,000 dignitaries, representing scores of nations, pay $425 each to attend. Steadfastly ecumenical, too bland most years to merit much press, the breakfast is regarded by the Family as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can “meet Jesus man to man.”
The group plays a behind the scenes role, in facilitating relationships between world leaders:
During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa’s postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand “Communists” killed marks him as one of the century’s most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise. “We work with power where we can,” the Family’s leader, Doug Coe, says, “build new power where we can’t.”
At the 1990 National Prayer Breakfast, George H.W. Bush praised Doug Coe for what he described as “quiet diplomacy, I wouldn’t say secret diplomacy,” as an “ambassador of faith.”
Suffice to say, there is much, much more in this ground-breaking article that will more than raise eyebrows — and go a long way to helping to illuminate some dark corners of why things are the way they are Inside the Beltway.
The question of how a pol’s religion influences their politics and policy ideas is legitimate, as Mitt Romney recently acknolwedged, as did John F. Kennedy before him. Barack Obama has sought to explain how his faith informs his public life, and the Democratic candidates subjected themselves to grilling by religious leaders in a forum organized by Jim Wallis of Sojourners.
When candidates make religion a central part of their identity, it is reasonable for people to inquire about what that means — and certainly anyone putting themselves before us to be the most powerful political leader in the world. It is also incumbent on any responsible candidate to explain their involvement in secretive, organizations — of whatever nature they may be.
For the most part, the public discussion of the relationship between faith and politics has been pretty superficial. And maybe that is as it should be. For all the crap about the alleged secularity of the Democratic Party, there has been no candidate in my memory who has not pandered to religious constituencies, and drawn heavily on members of his own religious tradition to support his candidacy. Religion, for better or worse, will alway be part of our political currency.
One of the current crop of Democratic “faith gurus,” Mara Vanderslice has always maintained that a pol’s public articulations of how faith informs their life and politics should be “authentic.” Whatever our other differences, I agree with that.
One of the problems with pols making a big show out of religion, as the framers of the Constitution well-understood, is that whether or not that faith is authentic or inauthentic, or the whether it is a matter of degree, is difficult for anyone to say. That is one of the many reasons why religious tests for public office and religious oaths were specifically banned in Article 6. Who can judge the authenticity of a polititian’s faith? And how will a politician know when he or she has abused their faith for political gain, such that they maybe no longer even know what they believe? Should we care? I am not sure. But it is healthy, I think to raise the question since the public political faith wars are well underway.
But back to our story.
Less well known, is that covert faith wars are always being waged Inside the Beltway as a way of accessing and manipulating elected and appointed government officials, military leaders and more. One such influence network is The Family. Back in September, Jeff Sharlet and Kathryn Joyce reported in Mother Jones on Sen. Clinton’s longtime involvement in The Family. The authors wanted to ask her about it — but they were rebuffed.
While I have no problem with pols expressing their faith, and explaining how their faith relates to their public life, they do not get to hide when they are asked about the details. I am rather surprised that more has not been made of this.
In the interests of full disclosure, I will probably vote for Obama or Edwards, but am not active in anyone’s campaign. In the past I have also criticized Senator Obama for secular baiting (I am pleased to say that he has since vastly improved his approach to matters of separation of church and state).
My interest is, as many readers probably know, the way that the religious right functions in American politics. In that regard, I view Sharlet and Joyce’s article as an important piece of journalism that Democrats — and everyone — should consider while choosing who will be our candidate for president. At the very least, I think Senator Clinton owes us an explanation for her involvement in this group which — sorry Hillary fans — cannot be construed as merely a Bible study or prayer group. Nor does it have anything to do with the utterly mainstream United Methodist Church of which she is a longtime member. But there is more to candidate Clinton’s faith and its role in her political life than the UMC.
Here are a few excerpts:
Clinton’s God talk is more complicated–and more deeply rooted–than either fans or foes would have it, a revelation not just of her determination to out-Jesus the gop, but of the powerful religious strand in her own politics….
Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection.
When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian “cell” whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.
Clinton’s prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or “the Family”), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to “spiritual war” on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship’s only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has “made a fetish of being invisible,” former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God’s plan.
The Fell
owship isn’t out to turn liberals into conservatives; rather, it convinces politicians they can transcend left and right with an ecumenical faith that rises above politics. Only the faith is always evangelical, and the politics always move rightward.
This is in line with the Christian right’s long-term strategy. Francis Schaeffer, late guru of the movement, coined the term “cobelligerency” to describe the alliances evangelicals must forge with conservative Catholics. Colson, his most influential disciple, has refined the concept of cobelligerency to deal with less-than-pure politicians. In this application, conservatives sit pretty and wait for liberals looking for common ground to come to them. Clinton, Colson told us, “has a lot of history” to overcome, but he sees her making the right moves.
The article makes clear that although Clinton is deeply involved in this murky group, she is not a religious right ideologue. She remains firmly pro-choice, for example. But on a number of issues detailed in the article, she is also firmly, and disturbingly in the religious right camp in ways that no doubt bring joy to those seeking to errode the wall of separation between church and state.
But the senator’s project isn’t the conversion of her adversaries; it’s tempering their opposition so she can court a new generation of Clinton Republicans, values voters who have grown estranged from the Christian right. And while such crossover conservatives may never agree with her on the old litmus-test issues, there is an important, and broader, common ground–the kind of faith-based politics that, under the right circumstances, will permit majority morality to trump individual rights.
Read the whole article here.
[Slightly edited and adapted from earlier versions at Talk to Action and Daily Kos.]
Over at Daily Kos, a spirited debate took place when I posted this there. Jeff Sharlet turned up and offered some further background to skeptics:
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But it involved the picture of the Last Supper, the Priory of Sion, and Opus Dei.
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p>But by far my favorite:
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but he’d be great as mike huckabee
What’s Dennis Kucinich’s role in this vast worldwide conspiracy to rule the world? Are Putin and Ahmadinejad
our saviors?
It’s not paranoia to recognize the real influence and fascist leanings of organized elite religion, when it concentrates itself in the halls of state power.
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p>Check out this group for example. Weekly prayer breakfasts in the Pentagon’s executive dining room on how to integrate faith into work.
from extreme secularism. We have groups hard at work to have religion removed from every facet of our society and every religious message so dulled that people don’t even realize the irony of Happy Holidays (happy holy-days).
You’re using the broadest (and least meaningful) definition of fascism, ie, “restrictive ideas I don’t like.”
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p>I was using fascism in an historically and politically more specific sense, as is evident in Fred’s list above. In this case authoritarian rule in the service of a small elite, using a national identity mythology and scapegoating to fuel the support of a mass movement.
In which historical cases would you say this has happened?
Which groups, exactly? This is a claim we hear a lot from, for example, Bill O’Reilly and his “War on Christmas” fulminations, but I read a lot of liberal blogs, I’m on a lot of liberal mailing lists, and I’m about as secularist as you can get — and while I see a lot of people in these various venues saying (correctly) that religious doctrine should never determine public policy, and in some cases saying (also, in my opinion, correctly) that skepticism, rationality, and rejection of superstition are virtues to be encouraged, nowhere have I seen anyone I recognize as liberal, let alone any group with any degree of organization or influence, ever suggest that religious speech should be banned or religious liberty generally curtailed.
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p>Religion should be removed from public policy, yes, and some people (again, myself included) think that society overall would be better off if fewer people chose so enthusiastically to embrace irrationality, but the assertion, so often repeated by right-wingers, that not only do liberals want to outlaw religion, but they’re organized into powerful forces in society which are systematically removing religion from our culture, is plainly absurd.
…you did not post comments as silly as this one
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p>Fascism also arises from extreme secularism.
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p>No, that’s preposterous. Fascism (and Naziism) arose from extreme nationalism. And corporate nationalism, at that. Secularism had nothing to do with either.
The Nazis worked to eliminate religion from their society. Himmler, although raised a Catholic, had grand visions of state and party replacing religious services and organizations. In some ways he thought of the SS as a religion. They started with the Jews, but persecuted Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others as well.
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p>I don’t disagree that nationalism was the tool used by Hitler to gain his foothold to power, but in World War II Germany, nazis and religion were not fast friends.
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Now it all makes sense…how did we not see the LIGHT before!!??? John Kerry and George Bush meeting in New Haven basements rattling skulls and bones…now Hillary disguised as Mary Magdelene in The Last Supper painting! Ooooooo…”cells”, “fascists”, “nazis”, “secretive prayer cells’, praying with the wives of republicans (how low can you go!!??….oooooomigawdinheavensaveusfromthesebottonfeeders!!
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p>When will enough of America say enough is enough of this garbage politics…are we so terrified to face the real issues that are bedeviling our country that we would rather make elections about all of this religious blood-testing and celebrity strutting instead…?
…but it doesn’t engage the facts and substance of the issue. The Fellowship Foundation (a/k/a “The Family”) is a legitimate, real group that has been written about by real journalists and real scholars.
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p>A quick search yields two things. From the AP in 2005 via The Nashville Tennessean:
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p>And from The Atlantic Monthly, November 2006:
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p>I haven’t finished the article, but it starts off talking about how Hillary Clinton uses these prayer groups to form political relationships with Republican colleagues such as Sam Brownback.
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p>The point here is that there is enough money, power, and agenda wrapped up in this organization for it be worthy of investigation and vetting. I mean, best-case scenario is that people are over reacting and this group is benign. But all that money tied to a clear religious agenda going into politicians’ pockets?
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Why does this organization need to be investigated and vetted? And by whom?
Has it committed any crimes? Is it running for office?
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p>Certainly, a politician may be asked, within reason, about his/her affiliation with any organization.
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p>But,that Mrs.Clinton chooses to forge across-the-aisle relationships at prayer meetings is of no more importance than if she did it at the local Starbucks.
Investigative jounalists.
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p>”Has it committed any crimes?”
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p>Not an unreasonable question for a journalist to ask.
We need an impenetrable Lewis Lapham essay about the significane of it all
journalists do not have the power of subpoena, unlike McCarthy. There really is a difference.
I don’t know if you’ve read the linked article, but at least as Sharlet describes this organization, calling them “a prayer group” is about as misleading as noting that soldiers do a lot of calisthenics and therefore calling the Army “a physical fitness group.”
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p>I don’t know anything about “The Family” but what I’ve just read here and in the Harper’s article, so without more extensive information and more sources, I’m not about to panic about the secret cabal of Christanist powerbrokers, but I am willing to assume that Harper’s has done at least some vetting of the piece, so it doesn’t seem at all unreasonable that one might think this organization ought to be looked into.
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p>It always seems very strange to me when people try to equate opposition to would-be theocrats, and concern about their influence on politicians, with Fascism or, as you seem to be doing, McCarthyism.
The Fellowship Foundation.
that arranges prayer meetings. Such as the National Prayer Breakfast.
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p>Kudos to Hillary for being an effective Senator.
…for Republican lawmakers in DC.
Like Bart Stupak and Mike Doyle.
whoever, it doesn’t blunt the larger point that is is a secret religious organization subsidizing housing for members of congress.
At “low rents”
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p>The “stately” brick house is two blocks from the capitol. Have you ever been two blocks from the Capitol at night?
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p>They’d have to pay me to live there.
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p>And, what does this subsidized rent have to do with Hillary?
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p>And how is the organization so secret that it runs the National Prayer Breakfast?
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p>This is asinine conspiracy theory nonsense, which is why it only shows up in Harpers and Mother Jones. They need it to appear in The Nation for the trifecta.
Since (at least in 2002) the 12-bedroom detached brick row house was zoned as a “church” and therefore not subject to taxation. I’ll have to remember that one should I ever become a landlord and want to keep all of my rental income.
Have you ever been two blocks from the Capitol at night?
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p>I’ve actually been near to the Capitol building (with my camera and tripod) to take some elegant pictures of the building late at night. This was in the mid 1970s. Several years later, we visited some of our friends who lived on Capitol Hill, and we didn’t have any problem walking around the neighborhood, even at night.
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p>I’m not exactly sure what your point was. The problem in DC is in Anacostia, southeast DC.
… parts of Georgia avenue looked pretty ripe to me in the 90’s.
…and former presidential Candidate Sam Brownback.
From the bastion of faux journalism, the LA Times in 2002:
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p>The DC housing is a “church”:
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p>On The Fellwoship Foundation’s political influence:
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p>On secrecy:
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p>Perhpas it’s not a “super secret cabal”, but this isn’t some quaint prayer group that just holds an annual breakfast. Call me crazy for finding the connections interesting and being skeptical of any organization that wields that kind of money and influence in Washington.
(I figured CMD was going to take you up on that offer, so maybe I can save him the time.)
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p>No organized religious group, much less a highly secretive and wealthy one with connections to governments around the world, has ever done, or even tried to do anything bad, ever. Religion, secrecy, money and power are only ever forces for good. What are you, some kind of paranoid liberal moonbat who hates capitalism and freedom and America and wants to ban all religions?
Alexey Ledyaev, for one. He’s the Latvia-based head of the virulently anti-gay international church that has set up shop in Springfield, MA and other cities in WA and CA. If this is the sort of people The Fellowship sees fit to invite to the National Prayer Breakfast, I feel a little light needs to be shed on them.
that the habit of finding weird conspiracies under every rock transferred from the John Birchers, who thought that flouride in drinking water was a communist plot, to liberals, who believe fantastical things about Opus Dei and groups such as this.
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p>The general point of this thread is that you find this group–the “Family” to be sinister for no other reason than that it is religious. Because the only allegations herein are that they have prayer meetings and own a building located in a crappy neighborhood of DC.
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p>And from this we you musing about whether crimes were committed.
i’ve never noticed tblade to do any conspiracy theorizing here at bmg. care to back up your assertion with links?
Apologies for the lack of links, but the serach function on this site is lousy, unless you are searching for something very recent. I was not suggesting that tblade espoused any of these other than in this thread.
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p>1. This thread.
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p>2. Reagan made a secret deal with the Iranians PRIOR to assuming office to ensure that the hostages would not be released prior to inauguration.
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p>3. “Stolen elections” presented as if in an election of hundreds of millions of votes cast, all votes can be tabulated without error. (When the margin of victory is exceedingly small, the loser will always have grist for a claim of fraud. Always.)
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p>4. Neo-con policy in Iraq as dictated by Halliburton.
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p>Not on this blog, but extant:
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p>1. Neo-con policy as dictated by Israel
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p>2. People who believe Oliver Stone about anything
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p>3. Bush “knew” about 9/11
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p>Maybe it is just a function of being out of power that drives the extreme wing of a political party to crazy land, and therefore the tides have shifted in recent years.
This diary — yeah, this is the diarist speaking — is based on investigative reporting published in Harpers and in Mother Jones magazines. You might consider reading the articles I excerpted before making a further fool of yourself. There is a lot more involved than prayer meetings and a building. Secretive networks that seek to influence, netork and manipulte the powerful is nothing new in history. This is just one such effort. A number of Democrats, and yes, including Senator Clinton, are caught up in it to varying degrees.
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p>Meanwhile, calling people names and comparing serious journalists and scholars to the John Birch Society is beneath contempt.
Can you demonstrate for us what Hillary Clinton has done in her political career and how in your suspicions was it directly impacted by “The Family”? These investigative reporters you note provided some good details regarding the organization, what it failed to do is link anything to Hillary or even questioned her record.
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p>You said that you’re probably going to vote Edwards or Obama, that’s more than likely the case for myself too. But Hillary every now and again gets my attention and depending on the week. She might be a bit too hawkish, but some weeks I think that might be a good thing since she has a brain to go along with it.
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p>A decision to vote for Hillary is not this gobbilty gook but rather her record.
In your opening comment above, you mock me (making a bogus reference to the Da Vinci Code). Then you say:
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p>But a few sentences later you declare their work and mine to be “gobbilty gook.” And you nevertheless ask: “Do me a favor.”
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p>Look. It is up to you to do your own homework regarding how you vote and who you vote for and why. All along the way you are going to be confronted with material that serious journalists write about the candidates, not to mention a lot of smear jobs. It will be up to you to sort it out. People like me may show up once in awhile and say,”hey this is good, important and reputable stuff, check it out” and even be honorable enough to disclose our own biases. You can take it or leave it. It’s your choice. But don’t not read, pretend you have, mock us and then demand proof. That says a lot more about you than it does about Joyce, Sharlet, me or anyone else who happens to write about subjects that make you uncomfortable.
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p>That said, here is some of the answer to your question — courtesy of the Mother Jones article you did not read.
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p>Merry Christmas.
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Presenting the statement,
as a negative strikes me as odd. I think some feminists might agree with withholding funding from groups working in the sex trade if they do not condemn prostitution adequately.
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p>Picking out a legislator’s support for a particular piece of legislation without doing a deeper analysis of the reasons for that support can easily create a false picture of what is really going on. It is a very effective tool that the Republicans have used repeatedly in the past. And it is something journalists do all the time because it is easier to do than to do a little digging.
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p>Should Hillary Clinton answer questions about her involvement with this group? Absolutely. I would bet that she has answered questions. I would rather, however, the press ask her and the other candiates more in depth questions about their positions on the issues and do in depth stories about what they have accomplished (or not accomplished) in their political lives in the past. When is the press going to start reporting on the candidates’ positions on the issues? See study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy
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And sure, let’s hear more about it. But in fairness, the fact mentioned is not mine. It is a quotation from the article and illustrates a point about how Clinton has sometimes sided with the relgious right on a key point. As it happens, I recall the debate over that issue quite well.
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p>Public health experts on HIV know that prostitution is a major means of transmission, and dealing with sex workers is a key way of stopping the transmission. Clinton sided with the religious right in refusing to deal with the matter in ways considered most constructive by public health experts. The point in the article is a all too abbreviated summary as part of as wider discussion. I might add I recall lots of investigative journalism around the problems of HIV transmission, prostitution and U.S. military bases in Asia. (Support the troops, anyone?)
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p>I quoted from the article because I was asked how Clinton’s involvement with “The Family” might have influenced her public policy stances, and so I quoted what the article says. No more, no less.
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p>Seems to me that this is an excellent way to discuss relevant issues in the context of who has the Senator’s ear — which is entirely consistent with a dicussion of the “issues” as you have called for. Let’s look at Senator Clinton’s involvement with the religious right on that point, and others.
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p>Let’s also hear from her about her involvement in The Family. I know two journalists who have some questions she has refused to answer.
I did learn something that I was completely unaware of prior to reading your post, and most likely many other people. I never knew about Hillary’s deep rooted religious background. So I do thank you.
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p>I did read the articles and did notice a few of the references you made above, but do you think that’s even close to being enough? I do not question Hillary’s position on abortion, her record is clear. You don’t agree they are reaching a little bit here?
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p>In reference to The Da Vinci Code, I guess what struck me more about the articles that it’s more sensationalized than anything else. With “Christian Cell”, “Bush consigliere”, “The Family”, “spiritual war on behalf of Christ”. I does sound like a good book. I’d buy it.
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p>But what it fails to do is provide any kind of evidence whatsoever, including what you reference in your comment. Hence my Da Vinci Code remark. There is a reason that these articles are in Harpers and Mother Jones instead of the Washington Post. It needs more in the way of evidence. My comment while being crass, hits the mark. I asked for more factual evidence rather than storytelling for a reason, if there is a concern or information we should know about then I’m all for getting this out there. At this point you cannot tell me there is any kind of evidence. Mother Jones knew enough to pose the article as a question:
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p>Yes, the almighty question mark. Fox News should have it trademarked. That is what was missing from this post.
One that the journalists sought to reasonably answer and took it as far as they could before they were stonewalled by a pol who parades her faith when convenient, and hides when it is not. Like I said in my original post, her mainstream United Methodist Church membership is one thing, her involvement in a secretive international rightist political network that buiilds political relationships via faith relationships is quite another.
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p>Senator Clinton seeks to be president of the United States. Some transparency would go a long way to clearing the air on this. But alas. Pehaps this is a good indication of the lack of transparency she would bring to the presidency. Perhaps it is indicative of her approach to public policy. These articles raise plenty of red flags.
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p>Meanwhile, you turn a blind eye to the facts as they are, and your absence of curiosity is certainly revealing, as is your rediculous suggestion that there is something wrong with the articles because they appear in national magazines and not in the Washington Post. Had you read the Mother Jones article, you would have noticed the sidebar that summarizes some material from an article in the Los Angeles Times about The Family. So if major newspaper attention to the subject is what you require to validate the legitimacy of the subject, I wonder if the LA Times is good enough? Or hey, maybe you think that Blue Mass Group and blogs aren’t needed because we get everything we need from the Boston Globe. Or maybe the Boston Pheonix and Bay Windows should fold up shop, since what they report is clearly invalid and unnecessary by your standard. Oh hell, lets shutter the Globe while we are at it too. After all, the Globe’s Catholic priest sex abuse scandal series wasn’t up to snuff because it didn’t appear in The Washington Post either.
How do you get there from my comment?
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p>Jeffrey Sharlet adds that he also has written articles for the Washington Post. Tell me he didn’t try to peddle the story. I think he needed more facts. How do you get your entire second paragraph from that?
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p>Also, as for the LA Times, did they write anything about Hillary, no? How does that even make a point?
aimed at attacking the credbility of the sources
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p>Me.
Sharlet.
Harpers.
Mother Jones.
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p>You have no idea what publications Sharlet approached or why. In any case, it is irrelevant to the points of the articles and of this diary.
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p>Your sneering and smearing approach to discussion is noted.
…The Fellowship Foundation wields significant money and influence in Washington and has clear agenda. This organization is secretive and is mostly under the radar.
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p>If this was an organization driven by Big Pharma, I wonder if people here would be so quick to dismiss this as a nutty conspiracy and lump the people who find this noteworthy in with the John Birchers and the Dan Brownites? But because The Fellowship Foundation is funded by people with a religious agenda, it is OK to impugn the motives and sanity of those who ask questions without engaging the substance. Religion, after all, is sacred and off the table of debate. Anyone who says one word critical of any Christian-related person, idea, or group is automatically Madeline Maurry-O’Hare incarnate, and therefore does not have worthy opinions or input in the matter.
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p>The case is made above in the post, numerous comments, and extensively researched articles that The Fellowship Foundation is more than a prayer group – it has been involved with back-channel “faith based” diplomacy. And it is highly influential, cash rich, and secretive. I can’t see why shedding light and transparency onto this group, it’s agenda, and it’s political and financial influence is bad for our democracy. If they’re benign, then transparency would back that claim up.
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p>And as for wondering if the Family committed crimes, Geo999 brought that up, not me.
becomes the red herring to throw off the entire thread. It’s a lame tactic.
Count me as a political centrist, admirer of Hillary, and serious Christian who finds this group scary as all hell.
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p>It’s not the prayer groups, it’s the organizational commitment and continuity. I truly fear that if a movement like this got enough influence at the Pentagon it could threaten democracy during a national crisis.
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p>I have no reason to assume it compromises Hillary. But I see no reason why she shouldn’t be asked about it either.
After all the religious right hates her more than anybody. A quick check of Project Vote Smart will tell you why. Here are some samples of her ratings:
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p>NARAL Pro-Choice America: 100% in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
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p>National Right to Life Committee: 0% in 2001-2002, 2003-2004, 2005-2006
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p>Americans United for the Separation of Church and State: 100% in 2006 (only year listed)
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p>Human Rights Campaign: 100% in 2001-2002, 88% in 2003-2004, 89% in 2005-2006.
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p>Christian Coalition: 0% in 2001, 2003, 2004
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p>Eagle Forum: 25% in 2002, 13% in 2003, 20% in 2004, 25% in 2005, 11% in 2006
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p>Concerned Women of America: 25% in 2001-2002, 7% in 2003-2004, 11% in 2005-2006
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p>Family Research Council: 14% in 2003, 0% in 2004 and 2006
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p>American Family Association: 0% in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
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p>People for the American Way: 92% in 2001-2002 (only cycle listed)
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p>Secular Coalition of America: 100% in 2006 (only year listed)
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p>National Organization for Women: 100% in 2005, 96% in 2006
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p>Although what I have heard about “The Family” is scary simply gathering for prayer even across a theological divide, should not be cause for concern. I think in HRC’s case these ratings should put those fears to rest.
to make me yearn to speak Norwegian. Norway is a secular nation doing all manner of things right, not the least of which are all the things they are doing to plant themselves at the top of this index.
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p>Christianity-as-fetish will be this nation’s undoing.