Religious Right Roundup: Texas Governor Holds Bill Signing At Fort Worth Church School In Bid To Corral Evangelical Voters

The Rev. Rod Parsley doesn't much like gay people. The very thought that gays might some day win the legal right to marry makes him apoplectic.

During a recent speech, Parsley unleashed a stinging series of attacks on gays, telling a crowd of about 1,000, "Everyone knows the effects of the homosexual agenda are substantial. Homosexuals are anything but happy and anything but carefree. Most of them suffer from low self-esteem and depression. Gay sex is a veritable breeding ground for disease."

Thundered Parsley, "We must not chance an untested social experiment with the security of our children."

In many ways, the speech was similar to other anti-gay diatribes Parsley delivered all over Ohio last year in a successful effort to add an amendment banning same-sex marriage to the state constitution. It was laden with bogus claims, such as Parsley's assertion that "only 1 percent of the homosexual population in America will die of old age" and his insistence that "the average life expectancy for a homosexual in the United States of America discounting AIDS is 42 years of age." (The figures are based on research by anti-gay activist Paul Cameron that was discredited years ago.)

But one thing about the speech was very different: the venue.

Parsley wasn't speaking in Ohio. He was in Texas, flanked by Gov. Rick Perry and leaders from some of the nation's most powerful Religious Right groups under circumstances that generated no small amount of controversy.

Perry, a Republican under fire for overseeing a lackluster legislative session this year, is worried about his ability to win reelection in 2006. Although his most formidable opponent, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, has decided to skip the race, Perry must still deal with an intra-party challenge from Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a feisty populist who has derided Perry as a "do-nothin' drugstore cowboy."

To shore up his chances for reelection, Perry is following a model perfected by his mentor, President George W. Bush: fire up the Religious Right.

That's where Parsley comes in. On June 5, Parsley and a phalanx of other Religious Right leaders, most of them from out of state, converged on a Pentecostal church school in Fort Worth to join Perry for a bill-signing ceremony.

Surrounded by a crowd of cheering religious conservatives and GOP faithful rounded up by Texas Republican Party officials, Perry affixed his signature to two measures, one requiring girls under the age of 18 to acquire parental consent before obtaining an abortion and another certifying a ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage next year.

The event was a well-orchestrated piece of political theater cleverly designed to placate Religious Right forces and prove to them that their issues matter to Perry. The ballot initiative, for example, did not even require Perry's signature since it's going before the voters. In a purely ceremonial move, he merely found a piece of paper to sign anyway.

The location was also curious. Perry's office announced that the festivities would be held in a gymnasium of a private school affiliated with Calvary Cathedral International, a mega-church founded by the Rev. Bob Nichols.

State Republican Party officials had also planned to film the bill-signing ceremony, hoping to get as much political mileage from it as possible by converting it into campaign commercials later.

"The Governor will be signing parental consent in the Ft. Worth/Dallas area next Sunday," read a memo from Tarrant County Republican Party Chair Pat Carlson. "We want to completely fill this location with pro-family Christian friends who can celebrate with us. We also want to send a very loud message in your area with this event. We really need for you to help us turn out a very large crowd. We may also film part of this to be used later for TV."

Carlson also noted that Texas Republican Party Vice Chairman David Barton, a "Christian nation" advocate, had arranged for the use of the church.

"Barton is fired up and has started his phone tree to pastors who were helpful with other efforts in that area and on the national scene," Carlson wrote. "We will likely have a HUGE crowd here."

To Americans United, the occasion had all the trappings of a campaign function. Under the IRS Code, AU pointed out, partisan electioneering might place Calvary Christian's tax-exempt status in jeopardy.

"The bill-signing event, as described in the media, has the appearance of a campaign rally," wrote AU's Barry Lynn in a letter to Perry. "It is my understanding that your campaign staff sent messages to supporters stating that they 'want to completely fill this location with pro-family Christian friends who can celebrate with us' and noting that the event might be filmed for television ads to be aired later by your campaign."

In an interview with the IMS Angeles Times, Lynn called the bill signing a "grotesque misuse of religion for clear partisan political advantage."

On the heels of AU's protest, Perry's staff cancelled the plans to film the rally. That decision did not sit well with Carlson, who told the Times, "This is a wonderful victory for conservatives. If it was me, and I was going to nm for governor, I'd sure be filming it. I just don't understand what all I he controversy is about."