There’s something terribly callous about Republicans in Congress using the Terri Schiavo case for partisan political gain, but it’s downright disgusting to see someone try and raise money off her plight.
Videotape of Terri Schiavo blinking at her parents has inspired donations from people around the country to the foundation set up to help pay for the family’s legal battle. But many other groups are soliciting donations in her name as well, some for a much broader agenda.
“Help Save Terri Schiavo’s Life!” says the Web site of the Traditional Values Coalition, a Christian conservative group best known for its campaigns against gay rights. Next to a link to the Web site of her parents’ foundation is a pitch to “become an active supporter of the Traditional Values Coalition by pledging a monthly gift.”
“What this issue has done is it has galvanized people the way nothing could have done in an off-election year,” said Rev. Lou Sheldon, the founder of the group, acknowledging that the case of Ms. Schiavo, a severely brain-damaged Florida woman, had moved many to open up their checkbooks. “That is what I see as the blessing that dear Terri’s life is offering to the conservative Christian movement in America.”
And when Sheldon says he sees a “blessing,” he’s referring to his group’s bank account.
Here’s a man using Schiavo to ask for financial donations but isn’t part of the Schiavo case. The money Sheldon cons people out of will not offset the costs of the multiple lawsuits surrounding Schiavo’s fate or have any direct benefit to her or her family. Donors are urged to help “save” Schiavo, but they’re really only saving the Traditional Values Coalition from slipping further into irrelevance.
Keep in mind, end-of-life issues aren’t even a mainstay of the TVC’s agenda. This is a group better known for issuing a “parents beware” warning about Shrek 2, which the TVC argued is part of a DreamWorks effort to advance the “transgender agenda.”
Indeed, the TVC, and Sheldon in particular, generally have raison d’etre: to hate gay people. It’s the principal purpose and the central feature of all of the group’s materials and propaganda. In August 1997, for example, Sheldon notified his supporters of a “homosexual conspiracy.” His January 2001 fundraising letter predicted a “homosexual invasion,” which could result in the “stealing of our children.” Just last fall, Sheldon called gay marriage “a social weapon of mass destruction” that “would destroy civilization as we know it.” In 1985, Sheldon even supported quarantining persons with AIDS in so-called “cities of refuge.”
The TVC is such a religious-right bottom-feeder, Sheldon’s group got paid by the pharmaceutical industry to lobby against importing cheaper prescription medication and, in 1998, even took money from the casino industry to work with churches to oppose efforts to legalize non-casino forms of gambling.
And now these clowns are trying to exploit human tragedy for financial gain.
Any chance this will hurt Sheldon’s ties to the Bush White House? I wouldn’t count on it.