Hello all,

I'm the author of the post that Brian Trapp is targeting here, and I'd like to leave some comments by way of a response.

First of all, I have to say I've never considered myself particularly wild-eyed. I'm also not "nameless", as Brian would see if he'd explored my site a bit, and for someone who accuses me of over-the-top rhetorical hyperbole, he seems awfully glib about throwing around terms like "howler" and "inscrutable poppycock".

Brian may find my conclusions upsetting, but I stand by everything I wrote, and I do not concede that he has found any errors in it. Most of his complaints stem from either misunderstandings of what I said, or demanding I produce evidence to support a claim and then assuming that none will be forthcoming. Here follow my responses to some of his major assertions:

"That would mean that 46.5 million people in 2004, or about 21% of the voting population, were members of that dastardly hegemony comprised of conservative Catholics and Protestants."

Friend, I suggest you go back and read my post more carefully. I did not say that the religious right constituted a majority of the population all by itself. What I actually said is that the religious right has "commanded the allegiance" of a majority of the population - in other words, they were usually able to persuade a majority to vote along with them. It was often a narrow majority, true, but my point remains valid.

"On a side note, why do such declarations by our nameless friend sound suspiciously like condemnations of the democratic process? Christians, like every other special interest group, have simply organized their voting in an attempt to put policies into action which seem best to them."

What you seem not to realize is that, in many ways, the Constitution is a counter-majoritarian document. It lists things which even a democratic majority may not legally do. For example, if there's a small religious group whose views are unpopular, we can't pass a law taking away their freedom of speech, even if a majority supports that measure.

Likewise, another thing which a majority may not do is establish an official state religion. Under the Constitution, each citizen is free to choose whichever religion seems best to them, and the government may not override that decision by forcing people to attend a different church or forcing them to pay taxes to support a religion they don't believe in. That is what it means to have separation of church and state. To the extent that Christian groups are trying to abolish these constitutional protections, then yes, I do condemn them. Even if they could find a majority to support that course of action, it would still be wrong, not to mention un-American.

"First, those nasty churchgoers are supposed to have "tremendous influence" and "near-unchallenged power" in the areas of "popular culture" and "the media." I suppose he is referring to the commercial success of books like the Left Behind series or films like The Passion of the Christ."

Partially so, but that wasn't the main thrust of my point. What's more noteworthy isn't that religious conservatives create programming which speaks to their views, but that they are often able to force the censorship of material which offends their sensibilities and thus deny others the opportunity to view that material as well. The most recent example, of course, was the bloviating William Donohue and his Catholic League pressuring the networks to cut Kathy Griffin's Emmy acceptance speech because she made a joke which they thought was offensive.

A little ways back, there was the brouhaha when all three broadcast networks both rejected an ad by the United Church of Christ which merely stated that the UCC does not turn anyone away. This simple message of tolerance and inclusion, according to the networks, was too controversial to air. Part of their stated reasoning was that President Bush had recently proposed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (and therefore, apparently, that they were bound to support this view and preemptively censor all material which might differ from it).

There was the NBC series "Book of Daniel", which was canceled in January 2006 under heavy religious right pressure because it contained an "unconventional" depiction of Jesus.

There have been countless incidents, as I'm sure you know, where religious conservatives fought to get Harry Potter and many other "satanic" or "un-Christian" books removed from public libraries and schools. If they said "these books offend us and so we won't check them out," that would be one thing, but trying to have them removed can only mean they want to prevent everyone else from borrowing or reading them as well.

I could name many more variations on this theme, but I trust I needn't go on.

"Also, this "tremendous influence" and "near-unchallenged power" is held by the Christian conservatives "especially in government." To some extent I have already dealt with this issue, but what about "near-unchallenged power"? I seem to recall 2006 fall elections that swept Republicans out of Congress and Democrats in."

Again, you need to read my post more carefully. The ten-year period of religious right dominance I was referring to ended with the 2006 congressional elections, which I thought I made quite clear:

"Over the last decade or so, the religious right has exercised virtually untrammeled power in America... And as their electoral fortunes waned, they have only become louder and more vehement."

"Which conservative Christians have declared their intent to "dismantle" the Constitution? Can the nameless author give us an example?"

Well, I could start with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who's publicly stated his view that the First Amendment does not apply to the states. If this legal theory was accepted, each individual state could set up its own official religion, compel all its citizens to attend church there, and ban all competing denominations. See:

http://blog.au.org/2007/10/10/supremely-radical-analyzing-clarence-thomass-theocratic-vision/

If that doesn't count as "dismantling" the Constitution, frankly, I don't know what would.

Next, there are the religious right-aligned members of Congress who advocate a legal theory called "court-stripping". This is the idea that Congress can remove the jurisdiction of courts to hear any case, thereby preventing that court from handing down a ruling which Congress disagrees with. (Usually this is thrown around in the context of stopping courts from ruling against government endorsements of religion.) This would dismantle the Constitution by striking at the heart of the principle of checks and balances. This has been advocated by powerful Republican politicians both past and present, such as Rep. John Hostettler, Rep. Tom DeLay, Sen. Richard Shelby, and others.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601486.html

There is also the American Family Association, which has over 2 million members and an annual budget in the tens of millions. This group has called for the reinstatement of religious test oaths, asking Congress to pass a law which requires that all members of Congress, regardless of their faith, be sworn in on the Christian Bible. This practice is explicitly banned in the actual body of the Constitution, for truth's sake, not even in one of the amendments. See:

http://www.afa.net/aa112806_2.asp

The Texas Republican Party has as a part of its official platform that America is a "Christian nation" and that separation of church and state is a "myth":

http://www.texasgop.org/site/PageServer?pagename=library_platform

And finally, let's discuss the "faith-based initiative". In a recent Supreme Court case, five justices found that taxpayers have no legal right to challenge any allocation of funds by the executive branch to support religious organizations. Under this ruling, the President could literally use taxpayer funds to select any religious denomination, build government-funded churches for that denomination all across the country, and hire preachers to fill those pulpits and pay their salaries, and no citizen would be able to challenge this in any way. If that doesn't count as dismantling the Constitution, I don't know what would.

"And if he can manage a quote or two, can he show that they rise above the level of anecdotal evidence and show that all or a majority of conservative churchgoers want to destroy the Constitution? I doubt it."

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=19031

According to this survey, 65% of American citizens believe that the U.S. was intended to legally be a Christian nation, and an astonishing 55% believe the Constitution does exactly that. 58% support compulsory, government-composed, teacher-led prayers in public schools. And, though not a majority of the overall populace, still highly disturbing: 28% would deny freedom to worship to any religious group considered "fringe". It's not hard to notice that this neatly matches up with the percentage of the voting public which you cited as constituting the religious right.