‘Hit-lists’ of the Religious Right wing

Press, 20 August 1986, Page 19

‘Hit-lists’ of the Religious Right wing

From

PETER PRINGLE

; in Washington |

Some leaders of t&e'Religious Right in, the. United States are openly praying for the deaths of judicial and. political officials with whom they disagree. This ugly form of religious intolerance is one of several that has emerged during the first half of this congressional election year. Candidates have been interrogated by the Religious Right about their political views, and more candidates than before are claiming they have divine endorsement. The Republican Party is the most affected and the intolerance marks “the most widespread Religious Right effort yet to take control of the Republican Party,” according to People for the American Way, a constitutional liberties group. A recurring figure in the Religious Right’s activities is Pat Robertson, the television evangelist, who is expected to run for the presidency in 1988. Robertson said recently he was pleased “the wonderful process, of the mortality tables” will soon change the composition of the Supreme Court. It was a reference to the fact that a number of the justices are very old and, if Reagan has his way, are likely to be replaced, when they die or retire, by men or women with more conservative views. The pray-for-death movement includes fundamentalist preachers like the Rev. Joe Morecroft, who is a Republican congressional nominee for a Georgia district. He has said he prays God to remove “in any way He cacc fit**

who support legal abortion. Another preacher, the Rev. Robert Hymers, of Los Angeles, hired an aeroplane to carry a banner saying, “Pray for death: babykiller Brennan,” as Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, who voted in 1973 with the majority to legalise most abortions, was visiting a local university. ; A group called Americans for Biblical Government, based in Maryland, urged in a newsletter that members offer prayers “for the Supreme Court — that either their minds be changed or that God would remove them and replace them with men who fear Him." The Rev. Greg Dixon, pastor of an 8000-member church in Indiana, has a "prayer hit list" of public officials condemned by his “Court of Divine Justice” which prays for the death of public officials he believes have violated religious liberty. In a new report on religious intolerance, the People for the American Way warn that these preachers are "using the same inflamatory rhetoric” heard before the outbreak of bombings at abortion clinics. The groups say the preachers “run the risk of inciting an unbalanced follower to attempt to do what they think is God’s will by trying to kill a public official with whom they disagree." The group concludes: “On a practical level, this fact (of religious intolerance) has potentially long-term implications for the Republican Party and the Amprirnn nnlitirnl cvstem.