Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, laid out the strategy of the social elites in a column published June 17th in American Prospect entitled “Bush’s God.” He wrote: “The great conflict of the 21st century…will be between modern civilization and anti-modernists.”
Science Is on God’s Side
He went on, defining the conflict as “between those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority; between those who give priority to life in this world and those who believe that human life is mere preparation for an existence beyond life; between those who believe in science, reason, and logic and those who believe that truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma.”
The sheer arrogance of this statement is breath-taking. Reich has revealed who it is he and his allies are against — God — but we must not let him define what we are against. The dichotomy which Mr. Reich creates is utterly false. It is precisely because we owe our allegiance to a higher authority that we believe in the importance of the individual.
Every human person is created by God and has an immortal soul, and is therefore entitled to inalienable human rights. Because life does not end here on earth what we do here really matters. We know that one day we will have to stand before the just and merciful Judge of all the world and account for our actions.
On the other hand, those who do not believe in a God to whom they will one day have to answer, become a law unto themselves, deciding for themselves what they value. They believe they possess what Thomas Sowell calls the “Vision of the Anointed.” They trample the rights of others, ignore the wisdom of the past, and set themselves up as judges. This is the seed of tyranny.
Let us focus, however, on one small section of Mr. Reich's screed — the part where he identifies himself with those who believe in “science, reason, and logic,” implying that those “who believe truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma” reject science, reason, and logic. I have spent over 20 years in the trenches of the culture wars and one thing has become absolutely clear; it is the social elites, self-identified as “progressives,” who reject science, reason, and logic.
This is not really surprising, because science is on God's side. God made the world. He knows how things work. As a loving Father He warns us of dangers, particularly ones that may not be obvious.
Studying the Issues
For the last 20 years I have spent my time reading, analyzing the research, and preparing reports on various battles in the culture wars. I have a personal newsletter, Heartbeat News. The marvels of email allow me to send my thoughts off to friends and those who have asked to receive it. I have a little slogan that guides my work: “If God says it's wrong, I can go to the research and prove He's right.”
I know for most of my readers there is no need for proof. We are quite willing to take His word for it. However, if we go to legislators or to the media and quote Scripture, we are dismissed as religious fanatics. So, we have learned to bring factual evidence, and even then we are still often dismissed, our evidence discounted.
On the other hand, the social elites lie about the evidence — not occasionally, but consistently — and the media believes them, never questions their claims, never checks their “research.” The social elites claim science is on their side, but whether the issue is abortion, stem cell research, abstinence education, AIDS prevention, condoms, homosexuality, or “gender,” when you go to their own sources you find no support for their claims. Either the studies they reference are poorly constructed or don't say that they claimed they said.
Those of you on the front lines in the culture wars know that in your particular field of interest your opposition misrepresents the evidence, claims that science supports their agenda when it doesn't, and in general lies. Like me, you listen to the news and read the paper and see the lies.
Sometimes it is really scary, such as when courts quote bogus research in their opinions. Or when the Surgeon General of the US issues a report footnoting sources that contradict his claims. Or when the American Psychological Association quotes invalid research and neglects a vast body of solid evidence to make a political statement in favor of redefining marriage. Or when someone stands up before a political convention and lies about the science of stem cell research.
These lies have had devastating effects. People die. What is worse, the media, even the right-of-center media, does not do its homework. And it is not just the media. Many of those on our side of the issue are fully aware of how their opposition lies about the issues they work on, but at the same time they believe the lies about subjects outside their area of expertise. I have found this particularly true in the area of homosexuality. Many pro-life and pro-family people still believe that science has “proved” that same-sex attraction is genetically pre-determined and unchangeable. They are shocked when I tell them that there is no evidence to back up this claim.
Checking up on claims made by social elites isn't difficult. The information isn't hidden in secret vaults; it is available from the public library system or the Internet. I am convinced that eventually the truth will come out and the house of cards they have created will come tumbling down, but we need to bring this about sooner rather than later.
Crafting an Effective Strategy
Gay activists have a strategy. In 1980s Marshall Kirk laid it out in a book he co-authored with Hunter Madsen entitled After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s. Those who wonder how the gay activists have achieved their objectives should read that book. In an article co-authored with Erastes Pill entitled “The Overhauling of Straight America” Kirk summarized the strategy:
[W]e can undermine the moral authority of homophobic churches by portraying them as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times and with the latest findings of psychology. Against the mighty pull of institutional Religion one must set the mightier draw of Science and Public Opinion…. Such an unholy alliance has worked well against churches before, on such topics as divorce and abortion.
Our campaign should not demand direct support for homosexual practices; but should instead take anti-discrimination as its theme.
For 17 years the gay activists have followed this strategy. Having discovered the lie the media would buy, they repeated it over and over. Listen to any supporter of the gay agenda and count the number of times he uses some form of the following words: bigot, prejudice, intolerance, hate, discrimination, homophobia. The speeches against the Federal Marriage Amendment in the US Senate perfectly illustrate how the strategy is implemented. They do not deviate from their script. These charges are totally unfounded and usually irrelevant to the issue, but the supporters of the gay agenda just keep repeating them. This works because Hollywood has for decades portrayed people of faith as insane, as hypocrites (outwardly puritanical but inwardly perverted), or as hate-filled bigots.
Those fighting for life and family in the culture wars need an equally comprehensive and effective strategy. Spiritually, morally and philosophically there is no contest, because there is no way to defend partial-birth abortion or not telling women of the increased risk of breast cancer after abortion or pretending condom education will prevent the STD/HIV pandemic. The social elites are reduced to calling us “intolerant” and “divisive” which basically means we don't surrender our faith, our reason, and our reliance on hard facts to their insistence that none of these should matter.
However, when we use philosophical, moral, and religious arguments, we make it appear as though the issues in the culture wars are matters of “opinion” and since everyone has a “right to his own opinion,” nothing can be decided. It is endless talk TV where both sides are treated equally. Now if both sides are equal, then we lose. Those who want to kill unborn babies and destroy families will be allowed to and we will be told to respect their “choices.”
But if a policy is shown have done real harm, then there is a reason to change that policy. If social elites are shown to have perjured themselves, then all their past and future statements are suspect. We can prove they have distorted research, invented “facts” out of whole cloth, and abused the research process. Even better, when we demonstrate how they have profited from their lies, receiving government money for programs that don't work, their credibility will be destroyed. The media should have exposed their lies and their venal motivations, but almost without exception the media accepts what they are given by the social elites without checking the facts.
Many of us on the front lines are already using this strategy fought in our own areas of interest, but we need to band together, focus on what can be proven, and choose a slogan that targets their lies. Personally, I favor something simple like, “They lie. People die.”
Public Relations: Time to Get Smart
Obviously, the New York Times, CBS, and other media sources controlled by social elites won't care, but they no longer have a monopoly. We have allies in the print media, in talk radio, and on cable TV. We need to encourage those who are sympathetic to see this as a good story.
Reporters enjoy exposing lies. This worked during the partial-birth abortion debate. The other side lied about the number of babies killed by this procedure. When the truth was uncovered, their credibility was destroyed, and the public was finally allowed to hear the truth. I am convinced that the partial-birth abortion debate significantly moved public opinion on abortion toward our side.
Public relations involves the care and feeding of reporters. They need information and hot stories. Uncovering cover-ups makes a good story. When the motive is money, the story is hotter. When children have suffered or people have died, it sizzles. Several years ago I worked with a reporter who picked up the story of a pro-sexual-child-abuse article that appeared in Psychological Bulletin, a publication of the American Psychological Association. I helped her track down the authors' other pro-sexual-child-abuse articles and connections. Through her work and that of others, the Congress censured the American Psychological Association.
The problem is that we haven't followed up on our successes. We haven't linked them all together in the public's mind as part of a massive campaign of deception on the part of social elites, motivated by money and their desire to forward the sexual revolution no matter how many people are hurt.
The Truth Is in the Details
Individually most of us have been working on trying to expose the lies told by social elites. What I am suggesting is that we band together in a common strategy that focuses on science. We can collect specific examples of where they are lying about the facts and covering up known risks. We could make up a quiz out of quotations from published reports which are provably false.
We could do the math and figure out how many people have died as a result the failure of the media to report the facts: What if women had the facts about the increased risk of breast cancer after abortion, particularly for women with a family history of breast cancer, how many would not have had abortions? How many would not have gotten breast cancer? How many would not have died? Do most women know that condoms provide little or no protection against the virus that causes cervical cancer? Do women have a right to know that having two abortions before you have a baby will dramatically increase the risk of premature birth in subsequent pregnancies?
How much money has gone to fund condoms in Africa, when there is no evidence that condom education works? Why do “health experts” continue to fight Uganda's abstinence and fidelity program when it is the only program that has worked? How many people have died of AIDS in Africa because gay activists wanted people to believe that abstinence and fidelity education wouldn't work?
I could go on. I am sure that many of you could come up with ways in which the provably false statements by social elites have led to suffering and death. Once we have collected unassailable evidence, we could hold a big press conference in Washington and challenge the media to take our quiz.
The strategy requires changing the focus from the issues to the lies. The key is to avoid religious, moral, or philosophical arguments. I have seen a major change in public attitudes on social issues in the last 3 years. I am convinced that most of those who can be persuaded by religious arguments are already on our side. The target audience for this strategy is people who are not moved by such arguments — people don't want to be “preached” at, but also don't like being lied to, particularly if the liars are doing it for money or if the lies harm people.
The Long-range Goal
The goal is to discredit the social elites, to convince the public that they have consistently lied and that their policies have harmed children and resulted in unnecessary deaths. Therefore, nothing they say can be taken at face value. They cannot be trusted with public money. They should not be allowed to administer public programs.
With the Internet it is easy to communicate to a large number of people in a few hours. Every time a major media a source repeats a false statement, we could email our supporters who would in turn email the media source demanding a correction.
We can go after politicians who repeat the lies, encourage sympathetic legislators to investigate false claims.
There are enough reporters out there looking for a way to make a name for themselves by uncovering a cover-up that sooner or later the truth is at least going to get debated. We need to convince those spokesmen for life and family who do get on talk radio or talk TV to focus on how the other side lies about the science.
We need to take a long-range view. A comprehensive strategy must be used consistently over a long period of time. Advertisers know that it takes 5 exposures before a message even registers. We must be prepared to hammer this issue for years. Gradually but surely we can change the public's perception of the social elites. Remember that the strategy laid out by Kirk and Madsen in the late '80s is only now bearing its bitter fruit.
Ours will be a simple strategy: to make it known that they lie about the science. “They lie; people die” is an honest strategy, one we can implement without comprising our ethical values. It recognizes how the system works and appeals to the self-interest of reporters. The goal is noble: to save lives and bring the truth to people who have been deceived.
Mrs. Dale O'Leary is an internationally-known speaker and freelance writer, editor of Heartbeat News, author of The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality and The Art of Raphael Coloring Book. Her conversion story appears in Spiritual Journeys. She is currently working on a book on forgiveness.
