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"They go to an East Room ceremony or a Rose Garden signing or to the White House Christmas party and say, 'Look at all the influence I have,'" he said. "In reality, they've been bought off cheap."

Paul Weyrich—head of the Washington-based Free Congress Foundation, co-founder of the Moral Majority and a man some call the father of the Christian Right—shares some of Connor's frustration, without criticizing Bush.

"The president is a religious conservative. The senate majority leader is a religious conservative. The speaker of the house and the house majority leader and the majority whip are all religious conservatives," Weyrich said. "Yet we make only marginal, incremental progress. We really have to rethink our strategy."

The Leadership Institute, along with groups such as Concerned Women for America, Robertson School of Government at Regent University, American Renewal, and the Free Congress Foundation, recently gave Weyrich a "Patriot's Award" for his service to the cause. The scene—an annual summer gathering in suburban Washington sponsored by more than 20 conservative organizations—was festive, with red, white and blue banners and balloons. Activists carried paper plates piled with fried chicken, pork sandwiches and baked beans under a large banner saying "Government is not God."

Interviews revealed that leaders of the movement are downright pessimistic, even at a time when some Democrats accuse Bush of pushing a religious conservative agenda and foreign critics say the administration imposes a moralistic vision on the world.

"In politics and public policy, we're losing ground," said Walt Barbee, a veteran political activist in Virginia, the state where religious conservatives arguably been most successful. "I don't see how anyone can say otherwise in light of the prima facie evidence of this recent Supreme Court decision."

Justice Antonin Scalia, in his blistering dissent, said the court's majority had decreed "the end of all morals legislation" and made gay marriage the logical next step. Meantime, an appeals court in Canada ruled in June that a gay marriage ban was unconstitutional. Pending court decisions in Massachusetts and New Jersey could sanction gay marriage in this country as well.

"I don't think the bomb has gone off yet. It will go off and go off soon. It's the marriage bomb," said Matt Daniels, president of the Alliance for Marriage, a Washington-based group promoting a constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely a union between a man and a woman.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), has endorsed the effort, saying "Western values" and the "sacrament" of marriage must be protected.

In Michigan, legislators are working to rewrite the state constitution in a similar manner. Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, predicts gay marriage will become the ultimate wedge issue, with every 2004 candidate forced to answer where he or she stands.

"Some folks on the right see the marriage issue as the winning move for them," said Michael Adams, a spokesman for Lambda Legal, a New York City organization fighting for gay rights nationally. "I think they're going to see that they're mistaken, just as they thought gay adoption was the issue for them and child custody for gays and lesbians was the issue for them.

"But we don't expect the Christian Right to go away. They certainly have shown with their virulent reaction the last couple of weeks that they're not going away."

Copyright © 2003 Religion News Service.

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July (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47