A leading religious right activist gives up in America. Frustrated activists may retreat from the political arena in the wake of Bill Clinton's impeachment trial acquittal.

"In there really were a moral majority out there, Bill Clinton would have been driven out of office months ago."

he words from conservative activist Paul Weyrich pretty much sum up the dilemma which many religious right leaders find themselves in, especially after the acquittal of President Bill Clinton on two impeachable offenses last week. After months of Monica, Linda and lurid tales of Oval Office peccadilloes, the effort to drive Clinton from office sputtered, then ground to a sorry halt. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition saw the debacle coming, and last month warned his fellow religious conservatives that the votes simply weren't there in the Senate to impeach Clinton. For his political realism, Robertson was attacked by many of his cross-and-flag waving compatriots even within the ranks of his own Coalition.

   It's the economy, stupid! With low interest rates and unemployment, a creeping gain in the actual standard of living and other economic good news, Clinton has a Teflon coating in the polls. His approval rating is close to 70%, a record; worse yet for the Republicans, and the Christian right wing of the party, are polls showing that most Americans think the Democrats can do a better job.

   In a nutshell, all of this is confirmation of a glaring political reality; the religious right is out of touch in suggesting that its "family values" agenda can motivate most Americans when they check off candidates in the polling booth.

   Now, there is evidence that this political "disconnect" is taking its toll within the ranks of religious conservatives.

   ¶    Paul Weyrich, one of the religious right's "intellectual firebrands" has made waves by sending out a blunt letter to several hundred key groups and supporters of his Free Congress Foundation in Washington. Weyrich, who in the past has demonstrated an uncanny ability to read the political winds and changing landscape, now laments "I do not believe that a majority of Americans actually share our values."

    No kidding, guy.

   The notion that there was/is a "silent majority" got Richard Nixon in trouble. In the 1980s, televangelist Jerry Falwell attempted to take his theopolitical agenda public by launching the so-called "Moral Majority." The next wave of religious right organizing found more politically adept tacticians on the scene, including Ralph Reed who took over as the first executive director of Pat Robertson's fledgling Christian Coalition. Reed transformed a kitchen mailing list group into a major political force, and skillfully promoted the illusion that the majority of Americans -- supposedly the folks who attend fundamentalist, evangelical and Pentecostal churches -- were the untapped political resource of the future. Reed was half-right, anyway, and did manage to organize millions in this subculture in lockstep and march them all the ways to the polls. The result was a takeover of the Republican Party, and the ultimately dowry for GOP loyalty and dependence. In 1994, Republicans won control of both sides of Capitol Hill, a feat unparalleled in 40 years of vote begging; credit went to the Christian Coalition and its allies.

   Then came Bill Clinton and Monica.

   Impeachment mania gripped the Republican ranks, and religious conservatives attempted to emphasize the issue of the President's personal life and grand jury testimony as a political litmus test. It was a doomed strategy; from the beginning, surveys of public sentiment indicated that while the majority of the American people did not endorse or approve of Clinton's liaisons outside of his shared bedroom with Hillary, there were more important concerns. For the religious right, however, captivated by images of a "moral majority" of Americans -- defined as those who agreed with their righteous indignation against Bill Clinton's personal life -- impeachment and convictions acquired the sacred aura of a religious crusade. The battle lines were drawn, and for men like Reps. Henry Hyde and Robert Barr, impeachment became an altar calling.

   Stunned not only by the failure to convict Clinton, but by the support the president obviously enjoys in the opinion polls. many religious conservatives are licking their wounds and nursing their resentments. For some, including Weyrich, the indignation against Clinton is now being transferred to a larger and more amorphous target, the American people. "I no longer believe that there is a moral majority," writes Mr. Weyrich. "We need some sort of quarantine."

   "Perhaps conservatives should tune out, turn off and drop out, one says," read the headline on today's CNN web site.

   There is evidence of more troubled waters, however, within the religious right ranks.

   ¶    Moderate Republicans may use the Clinton debacle to make their own moves within the party, and attempt to rein-in the GOP's vocal and influential religious right. The new Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert (R-Ill) enjoys a 100% rating from the Christian Coalition, but is widely viewed as a pragmatist. Hastert's first job will be to heal the wounds from the House frenzy on impeachment, and then find a way for the Republicans to keep their tissue-thin five vote majority on that side of the Hill.

   Another Republican voicing concerns over the party's questionable fortunes is Rep. Jim Ranstad of Minnesota. He admitted to the New York Times, "At this point, Republicans aren't terribly popular in many parts of the country," adding that "Impeachment has exacerbated that problem."

   One telling indication of how the GOP center is beginning to take a stand against the party's religious right occurred two weeks ago at a meeting of House Republicans. The moderates insisted that there must be fewer floor fights over one of the most divisive political issues, abortion. Observed the Times: "Such battles blocked passage of budget bills last year and, moderates say, made the Republicans look like ideologues." The party's religious right, however, while agreeing to limit votes on antiabortion bills, says that they will continue to push the so-called Partial Birth Abortion Act which has twice gone down in vetoes from President Clinton.

   Even the House Republicans -- considered far more dogmatic and combative than their Senate counterparts -- are waking up to political reality as the 2000 elections loom ever bigger. "You can't look at the current numbers and be calm," says Rep. Amo Houghton of New York. Ironically, moderate Republicans who voted for impeachment and/or conviction (in the Senate) could face voter wrath in the next round of elections; but there are indications that religious conservative poster boys like Rep. Asa Hutchinson could also be in trouble.

   ¶    Who runs against the probably Democratic presidential contender in 2000, Al Gore? It's a perplexing question for many religious conservatives, especially after front runner Rep. John Ashbrook mysteriously dropped out of the running several weeks ago. Millionaire publisher Steve Forbes, while he has mended bridges with the religious right by paying homage to king makers like Pat Robertson, doesn't strike many focus groups as an exciting prospect. Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council won't get the nomination when the Republicans huddle in Philadelphia for their convention next year, but he could control enough delegates to doom the party prospects by keeping calls for a total abortion ban, restrictions on gay rights and other "family values" fantasies in the platform. Bauer's uncanny ability to raise huge amounts of money simply does not translate into an appeal to the large spectrum of voters the GOP needs to reach.

   Another prospect is Rep. John R. Kasich of Ohio, the energetic chairman of the House Budget Committee who has launched a presidential exploratory committee. Kasich pursues popular economic issues like tax cuts, but can't resist the religious right positions on vouchers, school prayer, abortion and related issues. The Washington Post brands the hyperkinetic Kasich a "rock and roll conservative" who could unite the party, and Kasich himself likes to fuel the metaphor by describing himself as "Jolt" cola contrasted with his big-name opponents, "Coke and Pepsi." Strip away the rhetoric, though, and Kasich has to come clean on the issues that voters will judge with intense scrutiny. In a speech earlier this week, Kasich lambasted "elites" in the media and Tinsel Town who "spent their entire lifetime degrading God and people of faith." He gives lipservice to the First Amendment, insisting "I don't want religion and government to be mixed at all; it will destroy religion."

   ¶    Going to Extremes? Many religious conservatives may just be headed that way after the impeachment acquittal. We find Weyrich's lament significant in its "separatist" overtones, rejection of engagement and involvement with the wide society, and its break with the path which religious right groups have skillfully exploited in the past several years. In a sense, all of this was bound to happen; mobilizing the ranks of America's fundamentalist and evangelical subculture can only go so far in terms of winning at the polls, especially since the "moral majority" which religious right leaders claimed to tap into really never existed.

   In quoting Weyrich, mass media unfortunately neglected the most revealing portions of his letter which fully reveal a deep-seated resentment against American pluralism, as well as a pessimistic view of the future. Weyrich declares, "I believe that we probably have lost the culture war," and then discusses the word "holy" which he declares to mean "set apart." He then segues into a call for what amounts to cultural secession, a rejection of modernity on a vast scale.

   "What I mean by separation is, for example what the homeschoolers have done. Faced with public school systems that no longer educate but instead 'condition' students with attitudes demanded by Political Correctness, they have seceded. They have separated themselves from public schools and have created new institutions, new schools in their homes."

   Weyrich then proceeds to discuss "people (who) are getting rid of their televisions," and other who "are setting up private courts," the latter being a trend in the extreme militia movements, "where they can hope to find justice instead of ideology and greed."

   The rejection of modernity is even deeper, though, and Weyrich ironically compares his newfound separatism to the "hippie" culture of three decades ago. "The radicals of the 1960s had three slogans: turn on, tune in, drop out. I suggest that we adopt a modified version. First, turn off. Turn off the television and video games and some of the garbage that's on the computers. Turn off the means by which you and your family are being infected with cultural decadence."

   He then urges that people "Create a little stillness," and talks about how "when I traveled in the former Soviet Union, I couldn't go to a restaurant or any place without hearing this incessant Western rock music pounding away." Like many anti-modernists, Weyrich finds himself in the curious company of those who would lament the passing of the "good old days" behind the iron curtain when Russians listened to party propaganda rather than "decadent" western music.

   "Finally, we need to drop out of this culture, and find places, even if it where we physically are right now, where we can live godly, righteous and sober lives."

   Weyrich has also announced a new program called "Against the Grain," beginning with a series of six essays "telling cultural conservatives how to secede from a Politically Correct society..."

   The timing of Weyrich's new declaration of anti-modernism may not only tap into the disenchantment over the Clinton impeachment, but other cultural forces as well. Few observers would consider this to be the end of the religious right, or the lock which those groups like Christian Coalition seem to enjoy on the Republican Party. And while there were cracks in the facade of a unified evangelical-fundamentalist voting block which marches to the drum of Pat Robertson, James Dobson and others, the fact remains that organizations like Christian Coalition can still deliver millions of votes, and mobilize considerable pressure to effect legislation on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures across the country.

   But many in this subculture live in a contradiction which is becoming more acute. The evidence for this resides in the building hysteria over the approach of the year 2000, and the belief that humanity is in the "final days" leading to some version of the Biblical Apocalypse. The more overt, and at times even secular manifestation of this unease, this "angst," is the building panic involving the Y2-K bug. Premillennialist Christians ranging from Pat Robertson to televangelist panic-builder Jack Van Impe have used the Y2-K problem to link theological institutions, the churches, to the need for "preparation" for some sort of coming social collapse, perhaps instigated or fueled by Y2-K. There are plenty of secular apocalyptics, of course, for whom Y2-K symbolizes the apotheosis of over-engineering and human hubris. But for many evangelicals and fundamentalist, including those who have been politically active for years, the "culture wars" have now taken on a more menacing feature. Unable to affect change at the ballot box, many could follow Weyrich's plea to "drop out," and join the small but growing wave of religious separatists who then go on to embrace even more extreme ideologies including Christian Reconstructionism or racist Identity Politics. With the approach of the year 2,000, the real exodus may not occur so much from the public schools or other civil institutions, but from the very religious right groups which have wielded considerable power within the Republican Party.

   This could be a blessing for GOP moderates. It could also allow some conservatives and libertarians still lurking within Republican ranks to break free of the shackles of pervasive and annoying religious fundamentalist litmus tests on questions like abortion, gay rights, censorship, gays in the military, rating systems for television programs or movies, and other related issues.

   And what about Paul Weyrich and those separatists who head for the literal or ideological hills and swamps? Ironically, that describes a situation which many evangelicals and fundamentalists were in prior to the 1970s when men like Weyrich began to see the political value in energizing that very subculture. Weyrich, John Conlan, and even Jerry Falwell brought those millions of retreatist Christians (who had remarkably low rates for voting and other expressions of political activism), and organized a religious right revolution. That revolution may have gone full circle, however, and the "quarantine" Weyrich now calls for may be a rejection and refusal of America itself.

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