BJCPA and the "Religious Right"

Using terms like radical, extremists and fanatics, BJCPA Executive Director, James Dunn regularly uses his column in the BJCPA’s journal, Report from the Capital, to condemn the "Religious Right." In the following quote, Dunn praises a book that reflects his own hostility toward conservative Christians. Dunn’s column begins:

"Question: Why do you keep on carrying on about the Radical Right! Answer: Because I’m convinced that good people of every spiritual hue, precisely for their decency, cannot comprehend how profoundly outrageous the goals, evil the methods and pervasive the influence of religio-political extremists. Many see those so labeled as merely religious and political conservatives. How dangerous our naivete! How frightening or ignorance! Thank God for the Anti-Defamation League’s publication of The Religious Right: The assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America. In the most concise, reader-friendly fashion, David Cantor of the Anti-Defamation League has pulled together under one cover not only the facts but also the feelings we know as we face these fanatics." (emphasis ours)

What is it about the "Religious Right" that the BJCPA views as so dangerous, radical, extremist and fanatical? According to the above mentioned book, published by the Anti-Defamation League, under the subtitle "Religious Right and Homosexuality," the book states: "Among the concerns generating the greatest degree of unity and intensity on the religious right are ... abortion, feminism, pornography, and homosexuality. Each of these is perceived by the movement as an assault on the family and traditional, scriptural values..." (p. 132) (For more information see "defense" section X)

While the Anti-Defamation League's book is critical of numerous conservative Christian organizations, space will only allow for a very brief look at three.

Christian Coalition: Identified by the Anti-Defamation League’s book as the "most influential religious right organization of the 1990’s," Christian Coalition president Pat Robertson is criticized for his opposition to homosexual behavior. The book states: "Robertson calls Homosexuality ‘a sickness’ and predicted in 1992 ‘a fierce battle...over attempts by the nation's sodomites to force their lifestyle into the schools, the military, the government, business and the church.’"(pp. 25 & 27)

Focus on the Family (FOF): FoF president James Dobson is criticized for "exploit[ing] fears concerning the AIDS epidemic to advance the campaign against civil rights legislation protecting gays and lesbians." (p. 81)

On abortion, the book states: "Dobson likens abortion to the Holocaust. He has said: ‘[Abortion] is a moral outrage that transcends the law which sanitizes the killings...someday, the moral issue involved here will be as clear to the world as the Nazi holocaust is today." (p. 80)

American Family Association [AFA]: Referred to as "Tupelo’s Jew-baiting decency-monger," AFA’s Executive Director, Don Wildmon, is criticized because his organization "has attacked what it sees as a violent, sexually permissive, pro-gay, and anti-Christian atmosphere in popular culture." (pp. 76 & 85) (For more information see "defense" section X)

Criticizing the Christian Coalition, former BJCPA "scholar-in residence" W. Kenneth Williams writes: "Mean-spiritedness has replaced kindness in the Christian family. ...I am deeply concerned about the 'meanness movement' among Christians." (Report from the Capital, Jan. 25, 1996, p. 4)

Yet, of the Christian Coalition, BJCPA Executive Director James Dunn writes: "Christian Coalition, falsely so called, organizes hate, focuses fear, plays on prejudice, and exploits ignorance in its role as the hand maiden of divisiveness." (Remarks before Freedom of Expression Briefing, Feb. 2, 1993)

Of Focus on the Family's James Dobson and Family Research Council's Gary Bauer, Dunn writes: "Experts on the family are consistently sorry commentators on church-state law. Maybe James Dobson and Gary Bauer should focus on the family." (Report from the Capital, June 14, 1994, p. 3)

Writing about the "Religious Right" in general, BJCPA Executive Director James Dunn ask the question: "Is the movement Christian?" He goes on to state that though the Religious Right may be Christian, "it could be Christian just as the Crusades of the 11th - 13th centuries were ‘Christian:‘ full of hate, killing people in order to 'save’ them, dehumanizing and bloody. ‘In the name of Jesus‘ those ‘holy wars’ almost obliterated the purer Christian witness."

(Report from the Capital, Jan. 24, 1995, p. 3)