E-Mail This Article to a Friend Debasing our culture The only way out from underneath the Bush administration’s lies, obfuscation, and hate is to vote in November

MUCH HAS BEEN made of the Republican National Committee’s decision to showcase the moderate wing of the party from the stage at Madison Square Garden this week. Hence speeches by Senator John McCain and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani on Monday night, and by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday. And no invocation by Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, or Pat Robertson. The president, understandably, wants to avoid a Pat Buchanan–esque moment of the sort that marred his father’s convention in 1992. (Buchanan’s prime-time rant about the "culture war" was so extreme that Molly Ivins quipped it was better in the original German.) Yet very little attention has been paid to the fact that the invocation on Monday was given by a woman who this past February compared those who support the rights of lesbian and gay couples to marry with those who supported Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

Sheri Dew, who is the CEO of the Deseret Book Company and a Mormon activist, was invited to give the invocation by the RNC. She told Utah’s Deseret Morning News this week that she had "no idea" how the Republicans found her and that she received a call from the committee "out of the blue." But the right-wing Dew, who is also the author of religious inspirational books like No Doubt About It, is well known in reactionary circles. Last February 28, Dew delivered a speech to an interfaith conference on marriage sponsored by the Family Action Council International, a Virginia-based nonprofit that advocates for the "family as the fundamental unit of society."

In that speech, which was published by Meridian, an online magazine devoted to topics of interest to the Mormon community, Dew made the same-sex-marriage rights/Nazi sympathizer analogy. After making the comparison (you can read her whole speech online at www.meridianmagazine.com/ideas/040310defendersprint.html), she noted: "At first it may seem a bit extreme to imply a comparison between the atrocities of Hitler and what is happening in terms of contemporary threats against the family — but maybe not."

Maybe not? Dew made her comparison between gay-rights activists and Nazis deliberately and carefully. What does it say about the state of our nation that this woman was invited to give the opening prayer at the Republican National Convention? (During which she prayed for the "wisdom to protect and defend all families" — code for "legal authority to attack and dismantle lesbian and gay families.") What does it say about the state of our national conversation that those who drive the debate — Washington, DC–based pundits and politicos — don’t think this is worthy of comment, much less condemnation? And what does it say about politics today that everyone would rather debate what happened in the Mekong Delta 30 years ago (see "The Crooked Cowboy," Editorial, August 27) than call the Republicans on their strategy to lure radicals to the polls by embracing a campaign of hate toward people like the vice-president’s daughter?

Dew, of course, wasn’t the only right-winger invited to grace the stage of the "moderate" RNC confab. Grammy-winning gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, who during an interview with Charisma magazine described homosexuality as a curse caused by "neglect, abuse, and molestation," is scheduled to perform for the delegates on Thursday. Bishop Keith Butler, founder of the Word of Faith International Christian Center, in Michigan, and a virulent opponent of the rights of same-sex couples to marry, was also scheduled to address delegates on Thursday. And Senator Rick Santorum, who has compared homosexuality with bestiality, was scheduled to address delegates on Wednesday. These are not moderates. They are extremists. For the press to portray the RNC as a moderate affair is simply inaccurate and misleading. Indeed, McCain, Giuliani, and Schwarzenegger are moderate fig leaves for an extremist party.

We are living in dangerous times. The mainstream press is all too willing to investigate the baseless, scurrilous charges of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which lends dignity to Republican lies and distortions. From the moment the first Swift Boat charge was lobbed, the media should have noted the connections between Bush aide Karl Rove and the Swift Boat group’s backers, and noted that this was the third time Bush and/or his supporters have smeared a Vietnam veteran during a campaign. The first time was with McCain during the 2000 Republican presidential primary; the second was in 2002, during Max Cleland’s unsuccessful bid for re-election to the Senate; and now it’s happening with John Kerry. Meanwhile, the media take at face value the notion that the GOP has presented a compassionate, moderate slate of speakers at this year’s convention, despite the presence of speakers like Dew.

It’s no wonder the president was able to get away with lying to bring to the country to war. It’s no wonder that GOP radicals have been able to pass tax cut after tax cut after tax cut to the near-exclusive benefit of the wealthiest two percent of the country (thus triggering ruinous budget deficits). It’s no wonder that social policy in this country has been reduced to denouncing gay men and lesbians as the root cause of all that ails us. And it’s no wonder that Bush stands poised to steal another election thanks to our failure to enact meaningful voting reform in the wake of the 2000 Florida debacle (see "Revisiting the Scene of the Crime," News and Features, August 27).

There is only one way to end this disgrace: vote. You have until 20 days before the November 2 presidential election to register to vote. Visit www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleifv/howreg.htm for information on how to register if you haven’t already. More than at any other time in recent history, this election matters.

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