Just out., May 03, 1996, Page 21, Image 21

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ju s t o u t ▼ m a y 3. 1900 ▼ 21
D I S H I N G IT O U T
Radio: the radical right's most powerful tool rallies the
troops , raises money—and cements a world view with no
room for debate or diversity
STORY BY RICHARD SHUMATE ▼ PHOTOS BY UNDA KLIEWER
ome, bring your ears through the look­
ing glass, to a place where standing
up for liberty means restoring stigma;
where faithfulness is more vital than
happiness; where self-love is a thing
unclean and phone companies are sinister powers
bent on undermining the very pillars of society.
The inhabitants of the land behind the glass
see themselves as set apart from what they dispar­
agingly refer to as “the world” or “the culture.”
Yet, they insist, they are the right-thinking, right­
ful majority. In the next breath, though, they are
a valiant minority victimized by a relentless,
wrong-headed conspiracy of evil.
Though the Christian right wing is ensconced
in a nation where 12-year-olds carry automatic
weapons, people live in cardboard boxes, and
hundreds of thousands are infected with a deadly
and still-incurable virus, one of their leading
lights, Jay Sekulow, can go on the air and say that
the greatest threat facing America today is legal­
ization of same-sex marriage— without fear of
strong contradiction.
Another Christian radio host pronounces that
the leading cause of breast cancer is abortion, and
the audience simply says “amen.” Keep abortion
legal, another says, and euthanizing grandma will
be right around the comer. Amen. The movie Toy
Story is an attack on fatherhood. Again, amen.
Those shameless abortionists telemarket their
services and perform abortions on women who
aren’t pregnant. All together now, amen.
Those worshipping inside the cathedral of
Christian radio define the “C” word specifically
and without variation. God said it. They believe
it. That settles it. No reason to search. No room for
debate. No need for dialogue. Unlike secular talk
radio, where ratings lie in controversy and angry
debate, dissenting voices are almost never heard,
even during live call-in shows.
During a four-month journey through the air­
waves of Christian radio, perhaps the ultimate
illustration of this world view came during a news
report on a rally by Promise Keepers, a group for
Christian men. A snippet of audio from a Native
American pastor was aired. He lamented what
had happened to his people at the hands of the
white man. With great eloquence, he noted the
disease and the displacement, the pain and the
genocide. And then he said he was willing to
overlook and forgive all.
“If the white man hadn’t come, I wouldn’t
have gotten Jesus,” he said, to a thunderous wave
of background applause. “I want Jesus.”
C
or those who don’t subscribe to the Christian
right wing’s agenda and dogma, of course,
the temptation might be to dismiss this on-
air world view as the product of an isolated,
perhaps even paranoid, fringe. But during the
past decade, radio has become a powerful tool for
leaders of the Christian right wing to rally the
troops—against gay men and lesbians, against
liberals and pro-choice activists, even against
those who believe in the theory of evolution and
the separation of church and state. Not to mention
that the money-generating machine that fuels the
backlash against lesbian and gay rights is built on
these airwaves.
According to Broadcast and Cable Yearbook,
there were 1,633 stations in the United States that
designated religious programming as their pri-
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