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THE BATTLE FOR a seat in the bicameral
Washington state legislature provides a unique and troubling picture
– a portrait relevant to readers everywhere – of the lengths to
which religious conservatives will go to wage war against women,
homosexuals and progressive modes of governance.
Superficially, the fight is a heated
clash between between six-term-incumbent Rep. Jeannie Darneille and
political upstart John Connelly over who will be Tacoma's next state
senator. But most of the heat comes from Connelly, who is attacking
Darneille with a campaign that is notable both for its million-dollar
budget and its use of smear tactics so outrageous they are condemned
even by some of Connelly's former colleagues.
What is at stake is whether the
(mostly) Republican forces of misogyny and sexual oppression can hide
behind a Democratic label to capture or paralyze the Legislature in a
state that has long been considered progressive – so much so a
Roosevelt Administration official once sarcastically labeled it “the
Soviet of Washington.”
Darneille,
a Democrat who typifies
the state's progressive element, has proven herself a
fierce defender of female reproductive freedom and women's
rights in general. A modern personification of the traditional New
Deal humanitarian, she is a dependable protector of the social safety
net and an impassioned proponent of universal health care. She also
advocates granting marriage equality and all other forms of
anti-discrimination protection to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and
transsexuals.
Connelly,
who goes by the Kennedy-esque nickname “Jack,” is a successful
trial lawyer who lacks legislative experience. Though he claims the
Democratic Party label,
he has publicly
acknowledged he's
against abortion even in cases of rape or incest, that he opposes
granting LGBT people the right to marry and that he's “undecided”
on whether sexual minorities deserve any other civil rights
protections. Connelly also boasts
of leadership
roles in two arch-conservative Catholic organization, the Knights of
Columbus and a notoriously
anti-LGBT Tacoma parish.
Significantly, the Knights of Columbus
is another 4US “ultrasonic champion.”
And Wal-Mart – perhaps the most
relentlessly anti-union corporation on the planet – is listed as a
4US “sonic champion.”
Connelly thus has demonstrable ties
– each one revealed by credible material readily available on the
Internet – not only to the forces of the Christian Right and its
wars against women and homosexuals but to Ayn Rand capitalism and its
war against American workers.
Each of these associations is equally
damning. But the Knights connection is clearly the more threatening
for women and LGBT people. Through
his local Knights trusteeship,
Connelly has significant connections to the outspoken homophobe Rick
Santorum, and through Santorum to the mysterious
Opus Dei organization.
Also via the Knights, Connelly is associated with the ecumenically
homophobic National Organization for Marriage;
with the vindictively fundamentalist Focus on the Family;
likewise with the notably homophobic Church of Latter Day Saints; and
– once again – with Opus Dei.
Any notion Knights opinion in
Washington state might be less intolerant than elsewhere is refuted
by the website material linked
above: note how it commands members to “avoid supporting
evil acts...reject Referendum 74.”
Despite the fact Connelly shares the
zero-tolerance position of Republican Vice Presidential
Candidate Paul Ryan on abortion; despite Connelly's use of Republican
campaign tactics; despite the undeniable role of the above-listed
organizations in converting the Republicans into fundamentalist storm
troops – despite all these facts, definitive evidence
Connelly is a deep-cover agent of the Republican Party itself
remained elusive.
Nevertheless Connelly's
anti-woman, anti-LGBT positions transform his oft-brandished history
of anti-government lawsuits into a powerful appeal to the district's
conservative minority. So does the subtly
Teabagger-tainted rhetoric sometimes encountered on his
website, as in the “Final Thoughts” section of his
“Issues” page.
“The District needs more than a straight line party voter who has
very little real experience in the private sector.”
Connelly is attacking on so broad a
front he is now attempting to discredit even Darneille's professional
background. (Washington's Legislature, though always a full-time
occupation when in session, is ultimately a part-time job, which
means its members necessarily pursue non-legislative careers.)
Contrary to Connelly's innuendo, Darneille's career is indeed in
“the private sector,” specifically in the successful management
of nonprofit human-service agencies.
Though Darneille trounced Connelly in
the Democratic primary by 59-40 percent, he refused to concede.
Allowed by quirky Washington state law to again oppose Darneille in
the general election (6 November 2012), he soon began deluging 27th
District voters with anti-Darneille attack ads, their negative
content quickly emerging as
a campaign issue in its own right.
The advertisements and flyers with
which Connelly is flooding the district's airwaves and mailboxes
denounce Darneille as “against public safety,” a tactic that
prompted immediate condemnation from Democrat Bill Baarsma, a former
Tacoma mayor. In a letter published by The News Tribune, the
McClatchy-owned local daily, Baarsma implicitly called Connelly a
liar:
“I thought I had seen it all during
my many years involved in local politics, but trial lawyer Jack
Connelly’s desperate, over-the-top, self-funded...campaign for
state Senate sets a new standard. He is now running televised attack
ads against his opponent, state Rep. Jeannie Darneille, suggesting
she was in some way complicit in two horrific criminal acts committed
years before she was elected to the Legislature.”
“In point of fact,” Baarsma
continued, “Darneille has the sole endorsement of those people who
have to fight crime each and every day – local police (Tacoma
Police Union 6 and the Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs) and
the state patrol (Washington State Troopers Association).”
Sen. Debbie Regala, who has endorsed
Darneille as her replacement, joins Baarsma in decrying Connelly's
smear tactics. “He
has resorted to...innuendo, distortions and manipulations of the
facts to imply Darneille is not concerned about public safety.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.”
To
put Connelly's unprecedented
outlay in
perspective, a Washington State Public Disclosure Commission
spokesperson says each Democratic legislative candidate spent an
average of $124,170 in 2010. According to Connelly's own reports to
PDC, to date he has already spent $783,634.34
– 6.1 times that 2010 statewide norm.
What could motivate such
extravagance?
“I've wracked my brain
trying to figure out what his game is,” said one longtime
Democratic activist. “The only thing I can think of is he hopes the
campaign will benefit his law practice.”
Connelly's connections with
conservative Christianity and his unapologetic use of classic
Republican smear tactics may therefore be the most indicative
evidence of his intentions. Perhaps a broader explanation may be
found within the warning published three years ago in several
progressive media outlets, that Christian fundamentalists – having
successfully infiltrated the Republican party, purged it of liberals
and turned it into an army of religious fanatics – are attempting
to take over the Democratic Party
the same way they captured the GOP.
And “fanatical” is an
accurate description of Connelly's astounding campaign expenditures,
which – backed by a PDC-reported $1.07 million war chest –
provide a grim picture of his capabilities.
“Once upon a time, though
it may seem strange to think of it...the Republican Party was
moderately progressive,” wrote Bruce Wilson of
the Talk to Action website. “So there's no reason
Democrats can't become populist theocrats, especially if they are
willing to jettison core principles such as support for secular
government and minority rights...Along a wide range of fronts, the
American religious right has been infiltrating, influencing,
befuddling, and neutralizing the Democratic Party and the American
left.”
The campaign to impose
Christian theocracy on the United States is thus proven to be terrifyingly real.
The present-day war against women – in truth a war against human
sexuality in every form – is merely its most visible manifestation,
whether in Tacoma or elsewhere.
Another
index to the theocratic threat is a 2005 Rasmussen poll that reveals
63 percent of the U.S.
population believes the Bible “is literally true,” that it is the
incontestable word of god. The core belief of Christian
fundamentalism whether Catholic or Protestant, this is the doctrine
that fuels the burgeoning threat of theocracy.
The Manhattan
Declaration,
effectively a fatwa of Christian jihad against secular society,
confirms the magnitude of the theocratic threat, both by its number
of signatories and by its text:
“We, as Orthodox, Catholic
and Evangelical Christians...act together in obedience to the one
true —God...especially troubled that in our nation today the lives
of the unborn...are severely threatened; that the institution of
marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is
in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies;
that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely
jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to
compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.”
Its concluding lines are
especially revealing:
“(W)e will not comply with
any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in
abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and
euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule
purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat
them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the
truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and
the family.”
Many civil libertarians fear
the only way the Manhattan Declaration's signers can achieve
their ends is by abolishing constitutional democracy, imposing
biblical law, disempowering women and outlawing sexual minorities.
In its most extreme form,
the U.S. theocracy movement “is well known for its proposals that
alleged sinners, including homosexuals and rebellious teenagers, be
put to death by stoning,” notes Talk to Action's Wilson.
Connelly, like his
Christian conservative associates, is already redefining religious
liberty in accordance with Manhattan Declaration
principles. No longer is freedom of religion the separation of church
and state or the freedom from persecution guaranteed by the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Now it is the Ryan/Santorum
definition: the alleged freedom of religious extremists to discriminate
against those with whom they disagree.
In this context, Connelly's
“Issues” statement, linked above, is
especially revealing. It describes contraception as “an
area where increasing respect for differences of opinion and beliefs
is necessary and desirable.” Which begs the question whether
Connelly believes an anti-contraception pharmacist has the right to
nullify women's reproductive freedom by withholding birth control –
even if that pharmacy is the only accessible source.
His conservative stance on other
matters of women's rights, LGBT equality and human sexuality in
general proves him to be radically out-of-step with much of the
state's progressive history.
Meanwhile the Republicans – here (as
everywhere else in the U.S.), the party of Ayn Rand economics mated
with the Christian drive toward biblical theocracy – say they
believe the Legislature is theirs for the taking.
And if they win the governor's mansion as well – at this writing
Democrat Jay Inslee has only a narrow lead over Republican Rob
McKenna –
Washington would almost certainly go the way of Wisconsin, where
Scott Walker's anti-labor victories in 2010 and in this year's
failed recall vote also imposed a maliciously anti-woman,
anti-homosexual coup.
It's the Wisconsin example that makes
the possibility of a Connelly victory so frightening to so many real
Democrats. Given Connelly's anti-woman, anti-LGBT views and his
membership in misogynistic and homophobic organizations, Darneille
supporters rationally fear he would vote with the Republicans in any
legislative assault against reproductive freedom or any attack
against the other hard-won liberties of women and sexual minorities.
Connelly tries to give the impression
he would respect all such rights: “Jack does not believe that
anybody should be discriminated agains,” the “Issues”
section of his website states. “No one wants
to see a teenage girl drop out of school and face a lifetime of
poverty because she became pregnant. Nor should she feel compelled to
suffer the pain and anguish of a termination where this can be
prevented.”
An unknown factor in the senatorial
election is Referendum 74, which seeks voter endorsement of a gay
marriage bill passed by the Legislature and signed by the Democratic
governor earlier this year. The referendum's presence on the ballot
promises an unprecedented turnout from progressives and
religious conservatives alike. The former clearly dominate the 27th
District. But the latter are under unprecedented pulpit-pressure to
vote against the measure. What this might mean in terms of Connelly's
election prospects remains unknown.
There's also the fact Darneille has only slightly more than $233
thousand in her total campaign budget, small change compared to
Connelly's million plus. Darneille has not made an issue of it,
but the inequality between the two candidates is a perfect microcosm of the
socioeconomic chasm that defines the present-day United States.
Though such a lopsided fight usually ends in
victory for the wealthier contender, a poll conducted in June by a
Seattle-based political consulting firm indicated the 27th
District's voters are a solid 64.6 percent in favor of women's
reproductive rights. With the general election already underway –
these days Washington casts its ballots by mail – Darneille and her
supporters are counting on pro-choice voters for the numbers they
need to triumph over Connelly's lies, distortions and money.
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(My thanks to Pat Fletcher for
her graphics skills and for helping edit this text.)
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