Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, just delivered a blow to the already teetering kinship of the religious right and the Republican Party. This blow is aimed squarely at the wallet.
In an e-newsletter, obtained beforehand by Politico, Perkins urges his members to stop donating to the Republican National Committee, the fundraising arm of the GOP. “I’ve hinted at this before,” Perkins writes, “but now I am saying it: Don’t give money to the RNC.”
The decree by Perkins arrives two days after the news surfaced that RNC staff spent its funds lavishly, dropping nearly $2,000 at Voyeur, a bondage-themed nightclub. Voyeur specializes in high-end erotica that, when Committee members visited, featured topless female dancers stimulating lesbian sex.
“This latest incident is another indication to me the RNC is completely tone-deaf to the values and concerns of a large number of people they are seeking financial support from,” Perkins writes. If funds stopped poring in from a bloc of social conservatives, the beleaguered RNC would suffer a substantial political hit.
Reportedly, the upcoming newsletter also includes Perkins’ disdain for the RNC’s partnership with Ted Olson, the former Solicitor General under George W. Bush. Olson is currently serving as co-counsel in a suit to overturn California’s Proposition 8 decision, a landmark win close to the FRC’s heart.
Perkins, who has no qualms about agitating Democratic leadership, is not discouraging political involvement. “If you want to put money into the political process, and I encourage you to do so,” he will direct his members, “give directly to candidates who you know reflect your values.”
The parameters for these values may not be too broad. As a 2005 report from the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) demonstrates, the sex industry’s tango with politics extends beyond bondage. A slew of Members of Congress, many who rail against moral depravity, “accept money from corporations that derive substantial profits from pornography.”
Congressional recipients of pornography industry funds, according to CREW, include Representative Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania, who co-sponsored the anti-abortion amendment to the health reform bill, and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, the man Jeff Sharlet dubbed “God’s Senator.” Brownback once chaired the now defunct Values Action Team, an Evangelical public policy outfit supported proudly by Perkins.
