Religion in Politics

BARRY GOLDWATER is bound to lose his fight with the self-styled Moral Majority and other religious groups that have injected themselves into politics. This will not deter him. Goldwater has fought losing fights before. The fact remains that religious groups have always taken part in politics in this country. They have as much a right to under the Constitution as anyone else. Sometimes, they have served the nation well. The Right-to-Life movement never wearies of comparing itself with the abolitionist movement. In the light of history, the abolition movement was a noble one. The same can hardly be said of the campaign led by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Prohibition gave birth to organized crime. Religious groups that engage in politics are frequently offensive because they presume to have a pipeline to God. The liberal National Council of Churches is just as sure as the conservative Moral Majority that it speaks for God. AB. leader of the Moral Majority, the Rev. Jerry Falwell pretends to know even how God stands on the nomination of Sandra O’Connor to the.Supreme Court. Goldwater, who supports the nomination, is rightly outraged by this. “Mr. Conservative” also is rightly outraged by Falwell’s gall in lecturing him on how a conservative should vote in the Senate. Many find the very name, the Moral Majority, offensive, since it clearly implies that anyone who disagrees with Falwell is a moral leper. Actually, polls show that most Americans don’t go all the way with