***** your religion, and ***** what it stands for.


Ethic wrote:

Friday 3 September 2004 By Evelyn Nieves Page A23

The Religious Right, Out of the Spotlight


NEW YORK, 2 Sept. - Outside the New Yorker Hotel, more than
the usual Midtown madness claimed the streets.

Clutches of police officers directed traffic, camera crews
plowed through the morning crush of nine-to-fivers, and
protesters gathering for their first rallies of the day. A
clean-cut young man holding a "Save Our Soldiers, Re-Defeat
Bush" sign argued with a bearded man in Muslim robes over a
favored spot on the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue.

"I was here first !" the young man said. "No, you weren't
!" the other
shot back.

But above all that, in a third-floor meeting room of the
New Yorker,
there was peace, blissful peace.

The 9 a.m. prayer service had started.

The daily sessions, open to all participants of the
Republican National Convention, being held across the
street at Madison Square Garden, drew
a dozen people Thursday morning.

Janet Parshall, a conservative radio host of a syndicated
three-hour
daily talk show, led the group. She led prayers for
President Bush to
win and prayers for those who mock the religious right.
When she asked those gathered if they had any special
prayers, one man asked for a
prayer for "an angry protester" who had confronted him the
day before,
and another asked for a prayer that he, as an elected
politician, be
given the grace to separate human laws from the laws of the
Lord.

It was all over in an hour. But the prayer session --
sponsored by the National Federation of Republican
Assemblies, a conservative group that bills itself as "the
Republican wing of the Republican Party" -- was just one
example of the way religious conservatives who are a key
part of Bush's base have been finding a way to keep the
faith in Manhattan this week.

Sure, their voices have been muted during prime-time
speeches aimed at moderate undecided voters watching the
GOP show on television. And for
a Republican Party trying to win a tight election, it made
perfect sense : A recent Zogby poll found that 60 percent
of undecided voters believe
that a president should keep religious values separate from
politics;
only 29 percent wanted their president to emphasize
religious values.

But the number of undecided voters is much smaller than it
has been in several election cycles -- just 3 percent of
likely voters, according
to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. So organizers at
this convention have been finding ways to appeal to members
of the Christian conservative base who will be dispatched
to knock on doors, register voters and get
out the vote this November.

Throughout the convention schedule, all week, God was in
the details.

The Republicans have held prayer services and more prayer
services.
Former representative J.C. Watts (Okla.) held a prayer
breakfast for 700 people at the Jacob K. Javits Convention
Center, with White House Chief
of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. as the featured speaker. The
Republican National Committee staged a "Catholic outreach
event" at the Westin Times Square hotel featuring RNC
Chairman Ed Gillespie and columnist Peggy Noonan.
Antiabortion activists held a luncheon featuring Phyllis
Schlafly and others on the right, including Ann Coulter.

Ralph Reed, a Bush campaign strategist and former executive
director
of the Christian Coalition, told The Washington Post in an
interview Thursday that prime-time speakers discussed faith
in their own way. "I thought Senator Miller addressed it
last night," he said of the
keynote address by Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.), which invoked
God several times. "And I thought Laura Bush certainly
touched on it thematically."

But the most prominent occasion for religious discussion
was an invitation-only rally for the conservative faithful
Tuesday afternoon.
The rally was organized by the Bush-Cheney campaign, which
is mindful
that the 4 million evangelical Christians who sat out the
election in 2000 could put the president in the win column
if they vote this time around.

The "Family, Faith and Freedom Rally," at the
Waldorf-Astoria, invited
more than 1,000 social conservatives to discuss forging a
conservative agenda in the next four years, including ways
to ban same-sex marriage
and curb abortion. It reminded the faithful in an
invitation that Bush
is ....................
More :
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57346-2004Sep2.html?referrer%
3Demail

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2004/09/01/notes090104.DTL&nl=f
ix

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2004/09/03/notes090304.DTL&nl=f
ix

Why Won't Dubya Apologize ? Botched 9/11 info, two botched
wars,
a gutted economy, global scorn. Why can't GW be a man ?
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/04/21/notes042
104.DTL

Friday 3 September 2004 By Evelyn Nieves Page A23

The Religious Right, Out of the Spotlight

A recent Zogby poll found that 60 percent of undecided voters believe
that a president should keep religious values separate from politics;
only 29 percent wanted their president to emphasize religious values.

But the most prominent occasion for religious discussion was an
invitation-only rally for the conservative faithful Tuesday afternoon.
The rally was organized by the Bush-Cheney campaign, which is mindful
that the 4 million evangelical Christians who sat out the election in
2000 could put the president in the win column if they vote this time
around.