by Alan Sears
Chapter Eleven
FOR JOHN, ONE of the most dangerous things about the intolerance of evangelical churches remained the ever-present preachers on the airwaves and Internet. Some, like Reneé’s favorite targets, Jim Stockman of the Christian Family Forum and Ron Wilder of the North American Christian Network, had daily radio and Internet broadcasts that reached coast to coast, and even around the world. It was hate speech on a macro level, using the Bible to bash homosexuals, social progressives, equality, and people of other religions, all the while bringing in outrageous sums of money in the form of donations from supporters all over the world.
As the confrontations continued to escalate, John was beginning to think the warnings from Joel Thevis were coming true. The Alliance and its allies were fighting back and winning far too many cases. To get his agents back on track, John decided on a more direct approach. He called the whole team into his office and told them he wanted everything they could get on the Alliance itself. “I want to know who these guys are. Get me every name. And I want to know everywhere they’ve been, everything they’ve done, and every penny they’ve spent for the last five years.”
“We know Larry Jordan leads the group in D.C.—” Reneé X began.
“Larry Jordan is just one person in the Alliance. There are other people doing his dirty work. I want to know about them as well.”
He pointed to Special Agent Bob Maas. “Bob, I’d like you to be in charge of this. I want you to find out who’s paying the bills and what their endgame is. How big is the outfit? One way or the other, we’re going to have to stop these guys. Get with Sandra and find out about their direct mail and email operations. Who puts all that together? How many pieces do they send out? I want us to know every name on their lists. I particularly want to know how they put their cases together, and how they always manage to come up so strong against our guys at the worst possible time. Can you do that, Bob?”
Bob nodded. “Check. We’ll get started right away.”
“Good. I want you to do whatever it takes. We’ve been looking the other way too long and these guys have been eating our lunch. Get me the goods on the Alliance, and do it fast.”
JOHN HAD LUNCH with his chief-of-staff, Donna Lewis. He began with an apology. “Sorry to ask you to eat lunch in the conference room, Donna, but I’m sensing more and more ears straining to hear what we say.” He paused, smiled, then added, “I sound paranoid.”
“My father used to say, ‘If you’re not paranoid, then you’re not paying attention.’” She took a seat near John.
Andrea entered with a plate of cheese, crackers, and fruit. She set the lunch on the table. “Want me to stay?”
“No, Andrea. I appreciate you picking this up for us. How long before my next meeting?”
“You have forty minutes for this little get-together. That will leave you fifteen minutes before you have to meet the AG.”
John nodded. “That should work out just fine.”
Andrea uncovered the food and set paper plates, plastic forks, and napkins on the table. She set a bottle of San Pellegrino on the table in front of Donna, and an iced coffee in front of John. A moment later she slipped from the room.
“She is as efficient as she is lovely.” Donna unscrewed the top to the sparkling water.
“I wouldn’t get half of the stuff done I need to do if she wasn’t around to push me through the right doors and dial the right phone numbers for me.” He sipped his ice coffee, chose some cheese and crackers, then said, “I can say the same thing about you, Donna. This operation doesn’t work if you’re not here.”
“I do what I can.”
“You’re too modest. You do more than I have a right to ask.” He chewed for a few moments. “Have you ever heard the line, ‘If you need something done, assign it to a busy person?”
“Uh-oh. I have a feeling that I’m about to have more on my plate than cheese and crackers.”
John ignored the comment. “I’ve never worked on the Hill but I know enough congressional leaders to know how they work. A congressman from Georgia once told me how he decides what is and isn’t important to his constituents. He said, ‘If one of my staff comes to me to say that we’re getting complaints about some bit of government or some problem in the district, I ask, ‘How many people are we talking about? Ten or ten thousand?’ If it’s just ten, I don’t pay much attention. If it’s ten thousand, then I have some work to do.’”
“Well, we certainly get our share of complaints,” Donna said.
“That’s to be expected, but we’re moving from the ten to the ten thousand.” John leaned over the table, no longer interested in snacking. “Some of it is to be expected. Many of the people we prosecute for hate speech are tied in with religious groups. Our country’s history is filled with accounts of the religious rising up against the good their government does. That will never go away, but maybe we can mitigate it some.”
“How?”
“This is becoming an ‘Us’ against ‘Them’ situation. More and more it is us facing off against the Alliance and groups like them. Every time they win, people consider it the hand of God; every time they lose, it’s us persecuting the church. We can’t win.”
“And you want to change that?”
John cocked his head for a moment. “That depends on what you mean by change. We have locked horns with the Alliance. I have no doubt that we’ll be doing that for years. But what if we could do something that makes the grassroots supporters of the Alliance see us in a little different light. What if they could see us as partners?” He leaned back. “We can’t go up against four hundred thousand American churches, synagogues, and mosques but we might entice them to be more cooperative if we drew them in so they can better understand us and what we do.”
“We’ve burned a lot of bridges, John. We’ve been scratched off a lot of Christmas lists.”
“That’s true but only to a point. There are many religious groups that don’t see us as the devil’s minions. The most conservative religious groups—like the Alliance, for example—won’t warm up to us any time soon. That’s fine. They’re the kind of people we want to get rid of.”
“So how do we draw the others in?” Donna took a few grapes.
“Back in 2001, the George W. Bush administration instituted the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives program in which the government empowered, and by that I mean gave money to, faith organizations to help with social and community work. I want to build on that. I’m going to ask President Blaine to spearhead a program of Faith-Based Action Centers—FACs. The administration would build on the old Faith-Based Community Initiative, provide guidance and funding for useful community and anti-poverty programs. We would maintain a national website to coordinate the activity of the action centers. The centers would host a series of issue-oriented forums around the country and organize training.”
“And some of those forums would carry our message of tolerance for all people.”
“Exactly, Donna. Of course there would be more, but our message will go out, not from court cases, but through faith organizations. In return, the faith organizations will receive financial aid. It is hard to bite the hand that feeds you.”
Donna thought for a few moments. “I can see this working. What do you need from me?”
“This is not the kind of thing that we can generate from the DOJ. It’s a bit outside our operating parameters, so I need to get President Blaine on board. I need you to pull together a package I can present. Draw on whatever expertise you need from the team.”
“I assume you want this in a hurry.”
“Donna, everything in this business requires speed, but we must do it right. I want to present a complete package so Blaine doesn’t have to spend much time thinking about what approach to take. We do the upfront work for him, then let him hit the home run.”
“Understood.” She stood. “I’ll have a preliminary plan to you as soon as I can. We can fine-tune it from there.”
John smiled. Donna would make the magic happen.
PRESIDENT BLAINE ENTHUSIASTICALLY supported John’s plan and brought in Senator Elizabeth Borden and leaders of the House Committee on Financial Services and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to secure the necessary support and funding from Congress. The White House Office of Legislative Affairs vetted the final version of the bill, and when all the behind-the-scenes work was completed and it quietly had passed both houses, President Blaine signed the bill and announced the new initiative to the public at a televised ceremony in the Rose Garden.
“For too long, people have thought that the important doctrine of separation of church and state means that government should have no interest in the faith community, and that’s not the case at all. Our public servants in Washington, in the federal and state legislatures, and in city and county governments all over this country care very deeply about what happens in the religious community.
“More than 50 percent of Americans say they have some sort of religious affiliation, and this isn’t something government can ignore. The initiative we’re announcing today—to set up Faith-based Action Centers in churches, mosques, and synagogues all over America—will help bring us all together, to ensure a closer, friendlier, and more cooperative relationship between the government and the American people, with grants and operating funds for church leaders who promote the healthy separation envisioned by America’s founders.
“This is where faith and political action legitimately work together. It means that faith-based funding will be available to churches, synagogues, and mosques that teach and embody the principles of diversity, tolerance, and equality, helping to make this a more caring and sensitive nation.”
