Rev. Barry Lynn, leader of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, made an impassioned, articulate, and sometimes humorous presentation to an eager audience of UUs in a standing-room-only workshop on the morning of June 25th. Americans United is a group that carefully watches the religious right, analyzes their strategy, and helps to coordinate their opposition
Introduced by Rev. Meg Riley, Director of the UUA's Washington Office, Mr. Lynn said that he'd been called many things by Pat Robertson, including "lower than a child molester," and "intolerant jerk." "I object to the 'intolerant' part of that one," he said. Jerry Falwell has said of Lynn that he works for AU because "no real church would ever hire him," and that he is "personally responsible for the entire degradation of American culture." But he was the only person in the room wearing a suit and tie.
Rev. Lynn's message was that the religious right is surely not asleep, and not dead; on the contrary, he said it was the "most significant single force undermining civil rights and civil liberties in this country today." He provided many current examples of their behavior, and offered significant connections between questionable financial dealings undertaken by various leaders in their movement, especially Robertson, and the organizations that they seek to keep separate.
Rev. Lynn described the current state of their movement as akin to them having "hit a wall," with their leaders describing their movement as a "marathon, not a sprint." "They are seeking to get control of the one party in which they are strongest -- the Republicans." He said that though they claim to be nonpartisan, they are far from it. He pointed out that with three Supreme Court Justices up for appointment in the next Presidential term, the Presidential election we're going into will be critical.
As to the success of its opposition, Rev. Lynn said that "we should be proud that we defeated some big-ticket items, but we need to keep fighting. The religious right is not at all a toothless tiger."
