There are fanatics and lunatics at the extreme of each party.
"The mission of the Christian Coalition is simple," says Pat Robertson. It is "to mobilize Christians -- one precinct at a time, one community at a time -- until once again we are the head and not the tail, and at the top rather than the bottom of our political system." Robertson predicts that "the Christian Coalition will be the most powerful political force in America by the end of this decade." And, "We have enough votes to run this country...and when the people say, 'We've had enough,' we're going to take over!"
What would Pat Robertson's vision of America be if he and his fellow fundamentalists gained power? One vision of America might be found in Pat Robertson's view of Zambia. Zambian President Frederick Chiluba is a Robertson associate who, in 1991, officially declared the country a 'Christian nation,' and followed this up by changing some of the nation's laws to reflect the new Christian status. Robertson hailed this action while interviewing Chiluba during a taped segment that aired during the April 25, 1995, edition of 'The 700 Club' and lamented the fact that no such declaration can occur in the United States. "Your country is a standard for not only Africa but the rest of the world,' gushed Robertson.
Since Chiluba took office all public schools have become saturated with fundamentalist Christianity - Muslims and Hindus were told that they would have to build their own schools; state-run radio and television has been taken over by Christian fundamentalist religious programming; all abortion was outlawed - police shut down every clinic and many doctors and staffers were attacked and beaten; an anti-pornography crusade was launched, and fundamentalist ministers and missionaries were given license to work with the police to publicly burn any material deemed obscene. The country is now swarming with fundamentalist Christian missionaries, many of them affiliated with the radical Christian Reconstructionist movement...[which] Under their plan, the harsh legal code outlined in the Old Testament would be the basis for U.S. law."
