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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
__ ___
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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