October 17, 2003	Friday	Sha'aban 20, 1424

MONTGOMERY (USA): God told him to do it.

That’s what Thomas Bowman said was behind a decision to leave Kentucky on a 730-km pilgrimage to this sleepy state capital in the heart of the American South.

What the grizzled 40-year-old Louisville contractor found when he arrived was a small but spirited protest. Scores of like-minded Christians had gathered to try to block the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from a government building.

Their effort failed and the granite stone display was carted away in August to comply with a federal court order, but Bowman left Alabama convinced that America was heading for a spiritual showdown and that Christians must play a role in its outcome.

“This is a nation in decay and we have to do something about it,” said Bowman, who recently joined a caravan of Christians.

Evangelical Christians, especially in the Bible Belt states in the Deep South, are flexing their political muscles in a bid to stamp their imprimatur on issues that they perceive have been trampled on or ignored by the courts, legislatures and the media.

The desire to acknowledge God through Ten Commandments markers, nativity scenes and other religious displays is the latest battle in their war with civil liberties groups, who argue that such efforts violate the US constitutional premise of separation of church and state.

WAKING A SLEEPING GIANT: As in 1994, when the Christian Coalition of America helped deliver control of Congress to Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party, the religious right once again hopes to muster the votes to crown kings at the state and national levels.

There is some evidence that it is already happening.

Turnout by voters who described themselves as “born-again” or “fundamentalist” Christians was strong in last year’s gubernatorial elections in Alabama and Georgia, where Democratic incumbents were defeated by slim margins.

In nearby Mississippi, Democratic Governor Ronnie Musgrove and his Republican challenger Haley Barbour have assiduously courted Christian voters in the run-up to next month’s gubernatorial election.

Evangelicals are estimated to make up as much as 20 per cent of registered voters in America. This group tends to vote for Republicans who generally share their dislike for abortion and gay marriage and support for school prayer.

The controversy over the Ten Commandments monument in Montgomery, which was installed by the state’s Supreme Court chief justice and ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge, has added another arrow to the quiver of Christian activists.

“They have reawakened a sleeping giant who doesn’t want to go back to sleep,” said John Giles, president of the Alabama chapter of the Christian Coalition of America, which claims about two million members.

Although church attendance in America is still relatively high in comparison to other Western nations, it is not certain that the group dubbed the Moral Majority by Rev. Jerry Falwell can appeal to voters outside fundamentalist circles.

Sceptics say that Christian-based voter registration drives are unlikely to have much success because a large part of this target group was tapped in the 1980s and early 1990s, the heyday of the religious right’s influence in Washington.—Reuters