Guest Commentary by Herb Strentz
Of the religious right and what used to be the Iowa GOP
One of the riddles of news coverage of Iowa politics, at least for me, is why the Iowa Republican Party is not reported for what it is: Not a political party, but a driven assembly that wants to force feed its perspective on Christian beliefs down the throats of the rest of us.
More than 30 years ago, the Republican Party began a concerted effort to invite Christian conservatives to come on board. In Iowa, they took over the ship.
In Iowa, the revamped GOP has ignored or insulted widely respected Republicans like Bob Ray, Art Neu, Jim Leach and the late Mary Louise Smith and Marv Pomerantz, among others.
The Christians’ leading candidate for governor, Bob Vander Plaats, has written that moderation or compromise — that is working in harmony with those you disagree with — makes Jesus Christ want to vomit.
Yet as we get closer to the November election and the question of whether the zealots will seize the state and not just the GOP — the Iowa news media in news stories and editorial comment continue to treat the bizarre shift as little more than politics as usual with Christians as standard bearers for conservative thought.
Iowa newspapers and television stations ignore the party’s loony political platform — because, they will tell you, no one pays attention to platforms anymore!
Well, a few do. Gil Cranberg has written in Cityview and elsewhere about how scary the Iowa GOP platform is — but that is not news to the conventional media in Iowa.
On the other hand:
The Sunday New York Times Magazine of Feb. 14 had a cover article about the efforts of the Texas Board of Education to rewrite history to comport with conservative religious doctrine. Chief board spokesman for that approach is a dentist who believes that the earth was created less than 10,000 years ago. His and other’s efforts to pressure textbook publishers to comply with their ignorance is significant because the major textbook markets like Texas, California and New York are central to the success of the textbook industry.
The rush of conservative Iowa politics to the religious right — it is no longer a drift — came to mind in a curious place for me, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, Australia.
We were “down under” for a vacation and family visit in January and the gardens in Sydney were welcoming, well done and open without charge.
Within the Gardens are several smaller areas, including “Darwin’s Garden.”
That area is a tribute to Charles Darwin and is marked in part with six polished metal letters, each about seven-feet tall, spelling out D-A-R-W-I-N. Each letter carries information about the world-renowned Darwin’s work in botany and biology or quotes a tribute to him.
I commented to an Australian that such a public garden likely would not see the light of day in the U.S., even if there were a matching Garden of Eden or Garden of Intelligent Design.
He was dumbfounded. He could not believe that in the 21st Century such an approach would be expressed, let alone countenanced.
Yet most “GOP” candidates at the state and national levels are as anti-Darwinian as they come.
Which led me to another resource that I turn to when burdened by religious zealots who want to take control of government. It’s the play and movie, “Inherit the Wind.”
Written in 1951, “Inherit The Wind” was made into a movie in 1960. The drama is based on the Scopes “Monkey Trial” of 1925 — in which a school teacher was convicted of, gasp, teaching about evolution. The protagonists are attorney Clarence Darrow, who defended the teacher, and William Jennings Bryan, three times a presidential candidate and the megaphone for the religious right of his time.
So I picked up the script of the play and fortuitously, opened to a line from Darrow (called Henry Drummond in the play) that was on point with the schemes of the Texas Board of Education.
Accused by Bryan of wanting “to destroy everybody’s belief in the Bible and in God!,” Darrow responds:
“You know that’s not true. I’m trying to stop you bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States.”
That 1925 mission of Darrow is relevant today in understanding Iowa politics. CV
Herb Strentz is a retired administrator and professor in the Drake School of Journalism and Mass Communication and writes occasional columns for Cityview.
