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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (April 22, 1992)
Page 4 THE CLACKAMAS PRINT SPECIAL FEATURE April 22, Christian Right authoritarian ideology threatens^ OCA robs Americans by Robert A. Hibberd Co-Editor-In-Chief Oregonians have been hearing a lot of news about the Oregon Citizens'Alliance. This special interest group seems to have its hands in just about every issue that surfaces in Oregon politics, but just who are these people who call them selves the OCA? What exactly do they want and how do they plan to get it? The OCA is a right-wing political action organization which supports candidates and proposes ballot measures. The OCA is headed by Lon Mabon. The OCA’s main mission is to support candidacies of the Chris- tian Right. The OCA got its start in 1986, when a group of far-right conservatives backed Joe Lutz against Senator Bob Packwood in the Republican Primary. Although Packwood eventually won the election, the far-right conservatives could claim vic tory because they managed to get Lutz 43% of the vote. The following year the group for mally became the Oregon Citi zens' Alliance. Lutz chaired the OCA until he left his wife and children in 1988 to have an affair with a married woman in California. ; Mabon took over where Lutz left off. Lutz has since remar ried, asked for forgiveness and is running against Packwood in 1992. Mabon has compiled an effective record of proliferat ing the authoritarian ideology of die Christian Right as OCA Chairman. Mabon and the OCA have successfully opposed state- aided pre-kindergarten pro gramming (saying that it was not in the family interest), state divestment from South Africa (saying it hurts minorities) and parental leave (saying it was not in the interest of business)^ With Ballot Measure 8 in 1990, the OCA successfully re scinded then-Govemor Neil Goldshmidt’s executive order banning discrimination against lesbians, gay men and bisexual people in state employment. The OCÀ needed 63,578 signatures and gathered 118,000 in 68 days. Ballot Measure 8 won by a 616,751 to 561,355 vote. The OCA used scare tactics to win Ballot Measure 8, including a television ad featuring a frightened young boy being placed with gay men as foster parents. The child asked “But where’s my mother?” Unfortu nately for the OCA, gay men and lesbians could then, and still can be, foster parents. The OCA organized House Bill 3211, which was to prevent lesbians and gay men from being certified as foster parents. This bill lost in com mittee. Al Mobley, the OCA’s vice-chair man, entered the Governor’s race as a “pro-life” independent and garnered 13% of the vote. Now, thè OCA wants to amend the Oregon Constitution to declare that homosexuality is an abnormal behavior. The OCA has been known to try to frighten its political rivals into sub mission. The Corvallis-based les bian, gay and bisexual education and advocacy group, After 8, has received several threats, via phone recorder, from the OCA. The messages stated, “we know where you meet,” “we’re gunning for you,” “we’re coming after you with baseball bats,” “we’re gonna run you out of town one way or an other,” “you guys are dead,” “OCA rules.” One message included the poem: “He let the world know that he was gay, that was the day the OCA put him in his grave, now the world doesn’t have to fear, because there is one less queer.” The OCA, with its Christian Right message, is not at all a new phenom ena in America. The Christian Right, and their attempts to merge politics and theology to produce a system of social control, has been around for quite some time. The Christian Right organized in response to the Civil Rights Move ment, coming together under the rac ist agenda of the presidential cam paign of George Wallace. The Chris tian Right thought of the Civil Rights Movement and the offspring of this movement (the Women’s movement, the Lesbian and Gay movement) as s* the cause of the breakdown of To add to all the confusion, there authority, stability and law and is a new movement gaming power in order. America. In addition to the Chris While both the Christian tian Right there is the Far Right and Right and the Civil Rights move the Christian New Right. The Far ments of the 60’s were church Right is revolutionary and its goal is based, they were completely the takeover of institutions for white opposite in points of view. supremacist authority. Made up of The Civil Rights Movement Neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, Chris tian/ Patriots, Christiai^Udentity put forth the message that true __ ___ __ « democracy catis for justice, lifr^ churches,'ttJeKKK^d Aryan kt Na- eration, and participation, and that call was heard by oppressed groups throughout the country, creating a foundation for other movements. The Civil Rights Movement gave hope to disenfranchised pe’ople. The white Christian^Right Movement put forth the^message. that inclusion and participation \ by diverse groups ^will destroy v the old order of the 40’s and 50’s when segregation was legally enforced, male ^authority was unchallenged by women as^lass? and lesbians and gay men were invisible. The Christian Right Movement was a call for’a return to the past | During the 70’s and 80’s, the Christian Right had considerate success in their attack agOins t the accomplishments of tl?e Civil Rights Movement. In paiticullr, they gained strength through ini tiating a campaign against hoiKo^7®**^ sexuality led by Anita Bryant, the defeat of the ERA led by the Eagle Forum, and the attack against abortion rights led by Operation Rescue. The Christian Right’s great est success came from the coali tion formed to elect Ronald Reagan, who in return legitimized them and gave them open access to influencing and infiltrating institutions. This reinforcement allowed them to speed up their campaign to eliminate affirma tive action, gut welfare programs, broaden the death penalty and fill the federal courts with judges of their theological and political position. (Reagan appointed 425 judges to federal district courts and U.S. circuit courts of ap peals.) A strong, highly organized movement for social control and Christian au- thoritism is fully entrenched in America. tions, it is racist, anti-Semitic, and focuses on racial white purity. A couple of the faces of this movement are David Duke and Pat Buchanan. The ultimate goal of the Chris tian Right is to dismantle the gains of the Civil Rights Movement and to subject social and political life to Christian authoritarianism. To achieve this goal, they must attack not only African-Americans and other people of color who gained from the Civil Rights Movement, but also the gains Of the Women’s Movement, the* Lesbian and Gay Movement, and eventually, the People With Disabili ties Movement. They have found fertile ground in this time of recession marked by social and political chaos. Gener ally, people feel assaulted, at risk and in search of stability. Perhaps the greatest sense of loss is economic, providing an arena of finger-point ing. The Christian Right offers an explanation of disorder by saying that it stems from social and eco nomic disruption caused by people of color, women, lesbians and gay men who have taken opportunities from white men and destroyed the traditional family by demanding autonomy and choice. During 1991 and 1992 America has been able to see The Christian Right’s agenda at work through three national testing sites. In each of these, strategies are tested for repli cation throughout the country. The racist agenda was tested in Louisiana with the campaign of David Duke, where Far Right and Christian Right politics were merged. Duke was defeated by the extraordinary effort of the African-America com munity, which turned out 80% of its registered voters; otherwise, the 55 % white vote would have elected Duke. In this case, the messenger (Duke) was defeated but the message won by The burning cross is symbo religion by organizations th thoritarian ideology through cross is a tactic used by ra frighten minorities into subfl ti
