Tactic Uses Pulpits to Power the GOP

Evangelical leaders, on the first day of a rally, ask pastors to advocate for a social conservative agenda despite recent IRS investigations.
By Peter Wallsten
LATimes

September 23, 2006

WASHINGTON — Worried that discontent among conservatives and the lack of a clear standard-bearer to follow President Bush might cost Republicans in November, top evangelical leaders pleaded with their followers Friday to put aside frustrations and turn out for GOP candidates.

The appeals, coming on the opening day of a weekend-long rally and strategy conference, included entreaties to pastors to use their pulpits on behalf of the social conservative agenda.

"There is no choice, because the alternative is terrible," said James C. Dobson, founder of the influential group Focus on the Family, referring to the potential for a Democratic takeover of the House and Senate in November.

Dobson's organization recently launched a major voter recruitment drive in eight battleground states that will include placing registration tables outside Sunday worship services at conservative churches.

The Values Voter Summit — which will include appearances by several potential GOP presidential hopefuls — underscores evangelicals' growing power in national politics. The agenda serves as a road map of their tactics for energizing voters, including sessions on fighting gay marriage, attacking Hollywood liberalism and denouncing embryonic stem-cell research.

Kicking off the conference Friday, Dobson joined other evangelical chieftains in lobbying pastors to feel more free to advocate for conservative causes from the pulpit despite recent investigations by the Internal Revenue Service into alleged partisan activities by churches. One such investigation has ensnared the liberal All Saints Church in Pasadena, over a sermon denouncing the Iraq war shortly before the 2004 election.

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