I don’t know how the Republicans will do in the upcoming elections, but I do know that the Christian Right as a social movement will survive, and remain a powerful factor in the social, cultural, and political life of the United States. Every few years–following an electoral defeat of Republicans, the collapse of a Christian Right organization, or a televangelist getting caught with his pants down (literally)–the death of the Christian Right is announced in the media…corporate or alternative.

I wish I had a dime….

Christian Right groups come and go, the Christian Right as a social movement remains strong. For example, the Christian Coalition replaced the Moral Majority. The Christian Coalition collapsed several years ago as a national network.

Now it is being replaced by the FRC Action coalition, which will do highly targeted voter mobilization among conservative Christian evangelicals using sophisticated techniques that will go under the radar unless you are enmeshed in the conservative Christian evangelical subculture.

Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst, Political Research Associates at Talk2Action looking at reporting on the  FRC 2006 Value Voters Summit held September in Washington. He also gives the links to several reporters and grass root groups that do get it and what to do about the language, tactics, hyperbole and political targeting.

Side-note:  Joe Carter, (formerly Managing Editor of World Magazine Blog),  has been hired as Director of Web Communications for the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.
Carter is also an organizer for the Republican GodBlogCon being held for it’s second year at Biola University in California.

The Religious Right isn’t in demise. Just ask Garth Turner, MP Halton, in his on-going encounters  with Charles McVety, a Canadian Religious Right Poster boy. I’d like to know if McVety or some of his Canadian colleagues were at the Family Research Council summit, judging from the McVety email Turner highlights we’ll see the tactics and issues at the Washington summit translated for the Canadian audience.

Turner checked out the claims of the latest McVety email sent to faithful value voter supporters. Sometimes facts just plain trump hyperbole.

So, there you have it. Moral outrage and social degradation in several easy steps. Through partial information, unfounded suggestion and fill-in-the-blanks allegations, some normal suburban folks who would never find themselves in an inner-city shelter for dead-end youth are led to believe their kids are about to be infected. And they’re ticked. They want their MP to do something about it, before this material starts sliding along the floor of the big yellow school bus driving down Pleasant Blvd.

Well, pummeled a few days ago with reaction to the OT’s (Obsessed Televangelist) email, I decided to get some information. I learned that the book in question was in fact smutty, gritty and crude. I also learned it had been written by street kids as a guide to other street kids about the do’s and don’ts of sexual encounters, and had actually won accolades from social workers.