The Traditional Values Coalition, as religious right groups go, has always been something of a bottom feeder. As someone who’s watched the movement for years, I’ve always seen the TVC as more pathetic than dangerous.
The group, led by the Rev. Lou Sheldon, an ultra-conservative Presbyterian minister, has a remarkable ability to turn out virulently hateful fundraising letters, but rarely, if ever, has had a meaningful impact on public policy in America.
The TVC, and Sheldon in particular, really just exists to hate gay people. It’s the principal purpose and the central feature of all of the group’s materials and propaganda. In January 2001, for example, Sheldon warned his supporters of a “homosexual invasion,” which could result in the “stealing of our children.” Some years earlier, Sheldon recommended quarantining all persons with AIDS in areas Sheldon called “cities of refuge.”
Occasionally, Sheldon and the TVC are so hateful, they become caricature-like. For example, in October 2001, just three weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Sheldon discovered that some of those killed had gay partners who may be eligible for aid to victims’ families. Sheldon and the TVC fought vigorously to prevent private and public agencies giving relief aid from helping gays.
More recently, for reasons unknown before today, the TVC has been fighting against a congressional plan to import low-cost prescription drugs to the United States. For a religious right agenda, this was an odd mix. Getting cheaper medicine for Americans isn’t usually the kind of thing fundamentalists care about, much less actively oppose.
The Washington Post discovered why Sheldon and the TVC have taken such an interest in lobbying on the issue — the pharmaceutical industry has been paying them.
Drug companies, of course, stand to lose a lot of money if the federal government successfully begins importing cheaper drugs into the country. Since “big pharm” has little credibility on the issue, the industry’s lobbyists have begun working quietly with outside groups such as the TVC.
Pharm lobbyists not only crafted the TVC’s talking points and wrote the group’s direct mail letters, but the Post explains they also arranged for financial help for the religious right group, including paying for the TVC’s mailings.
The TVC, meanwhile, insists that its interest in the issue is over the importation of a drug called RU486, the so-called “abortion pill,” which Sheldon insists would be more widely available if the congressional drug plan becomes law.
Apparently, however, this is an argument crafted carefully by the drug companies to generate religious right support. The problem, however, is that few actually believe that the drug reimportation bill would have any effect at all on RU486.
To put things in perspective, the drug companies approached the Christian Coalition to help lobby against the drug legislation using the RU486 line and even they wouldn’t touch this one. (And believe me, the Christian Coalition’s standards aren’t that high.)
The TVC’s efforts on this issue are so disingenuous that the group has even managed to offend some of the most conservative religious right allies in Congress. Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), a longtime friend of the religious right, said the TVC has used “unethical and unacceptable tactics” in lobbying against the bill. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) said, “It makes me so angry I could spit.”
What the Post didn’t report is that this isn’t the first time the TVC has been caught lobbying on an issue for money.
In 1998, the Traditional Values Coalition took money from the casino industry to work with churches and the religious right community to oppose efforts to legalize non-casino forms of gambling.
Lou Sheldon’s son Steve, a paid TVC consultant, accepted more than $150,000 from the casino industry to work on this issue, while the TVC itself got $10,000 from a racetrack in 1994 and another $10,000 in 1998 from a front group set up by Nevada casinos to fight a ballot proposal that would have allowed Indian tribes to sponsor gambling.
What’s sad is that these revelations probably have no effect on the group’s credibility with its membership. Sheldon will probably send out a letter to his supporters this week saying he needs immediate contributions because the devil, or the media, or the liberals, or the gays (or some combination therein) have hatched a wicked scheme to damage his credibility. And tragically, these poor fools will get their checkbooks and continue to fund this clown.