Also this issue: The Counting -Bruce Schimmel Miles To Go -Howard Altman Letters to the Editor

April 17-23, 2003

slant

The Specter of Fear

Lunch with Jerry Falwell shows Pennsylvania’s senior U.S. senator is running scared.

by J.J. Balaban

So what are we to make of a report by the Associated Press that Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania invited the notorious Rev. Jerry Falwell to join him for lunch in the Senate dining room? Either it was some sort of April Fool’s joke or politics made for very strange dining partners.

Specter's spokesman declined to comment on what Specter and Falwell discussed at their get-together, but he did send a clear signal to religious conservatives by remarking to a reporter that, "There are a lot of things that they do agree on."

Really? Lest we forget, here are some of the highlights of Mr. Falwell's odious career:

€1979: Falwell founds the Moral Majority, a political organization dedicated to promoting prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools, and opposing abortion and homosexual rights.

€1983: Falwell opposes federal action to combat the growing AIDS crisis, declaring that "herpes, AIDS, venereal diseases are a definite form of the judgment of God upon a society."

€1985: Falwell meets with leaders of the then-white supremacist government in South Africa and urges Americans to support the apartheid regime and oppose Bishop Desmond Tutu, whom Falwell calls "a phony."

€1994: Falwell, on his radio show, urges listeners to purchase a videotape titled "The Clinton Chronicles," which accuses President Clinton of being involved in multiple murders while he was the governor of Arkansas and labels Clinton a "killer, liar, philanderer and drug addict."

€1999: Falwell declares that the Antichrist is probably alive today and is "male and Jewish." (Presumably, he wasn't referring to Arlen Specter.)

€1999: Falwell, in his magazine, urges parents not to let their children watch the Teletubbies TV program because he claims the purple Tinky Winky character "wears a gay-pride triangle and is meant to be a gay role model."

€2001: Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, Falwell goes on television to blame the attack on "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say Œyou helped this happen.'"

€2003: Falwell provokes a riot of thousands of Muslims in India by declaring on 60 Minutes that Mohammad, who founded the Muslim religion, was "a terrorist."

Ten years ago Specter founded an organization to counter the influence of the religious right in the Republican Party. Six years ago the primary tenet of Specter's presidential candidacy was reducing the influence of "Christian conservatives" (his words) in the Republican Party. So why did he suddenly turn around 180 degrees last week to invite perhaps the most noxious "Christian conservative" to lunch?

The answer is fear -- specifically fear of Congressman Pat Toomey of Allentown. Toomey has launched an aggressive challenge from the right to defeat Specter in 2004 for the Republican senatorial nomination. While Specter remains favored to win re-nomination, he's been running scared. Lately, Specter has been veering so far to the right to undercut the rationale for Toomey's candidacy that it's growing difficult to distinguish between him and Pennsylvania's other U.S. senator, Rick Santorum.

Specter voted to reduce the 2001 Bush tax cut because it was too excessive. But last month, despite projections that it will plunge the country into the largest deficits in our history, Specter voted against trimming the 2003 Bush tax cut. He's voted in support of abortion rights throughout his tenure in the Senate, but recently voted to make criminals out of doctors who perform certain late-term abortions, even though they're most frequently done to protect the health of the mother. He's cast a number of pro-environmental votes over the years, but voted in January against tougher enforcement of the Clean Air Act. No wonder Specter recently told a reporter, "I don't yield to anyone on the issue of supporting sound conservative issues."

Longtime Specter watchers won't be particularly surprised by the news that he's now cozying up to Falwell to improve his standing with religious conservatives. After all, Specter is just continuing his pattern of doing anything it takes -- such as his unconscionable grilling of Anita Hill in 1991 -- to prolong his political career. But it's disappointing that Specter would lend credibility to someone with such a divisive history of making racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic remarks just so he could score a few political points.

J.J. Balaban is a Democratic political consultant based in Lower Merion. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (850 words), contact, Howard Altman, City Paper editor in chief, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.