Sarah Palin may bring

evangelicals back into

the Republican fold

“Two-thirds of white evangelical voters favour John McCain”

www.newscientist.com 27 September 2008 | NewScientist | 15

toe the evangelical line.Until recently, it seemed that this

election might be different, in part because evangelical politics has changed since 2004. The rise of a new generation of moderate evangelicals has broadened the movement’s political agenda. Some prominent pastors now preach the need to address global warming and help developing countries on moral grounds, issues on which the Democratic Party has a strong track record.

The Democrats, in turn, have started trying to pick off previously Republican Christian voters. Since 2004, the party has recruited evangelicals to help write speeches and oversee advertising in the Christian media. In Obama, the Democrats have also found a candidate who can speak passionately about his faith. McCain, in contrast, has a history of skirmishes with evangelical leaders. “There is no longer an assumption that being a churchgoer will tip you in the Republican direction,” says Neff.

It is not clear whether the Democrats have been making much headway. For some religious voters, Obama’s support for gay marriage and abortion rights represents an insurmountable barrier. According to recent polls, two-thirds of white evangelicals favour McCain (black evangelicals have always tended to vote Democrat). Many of the surveys were conducted before Sarah Palin joined the Republican ticket as McCain’s running mate. Her strongly conservative views appear to have energised the religious right, who may now turn out to vote in greater numbers on election day. If exit polls

show that evangelicals helped elect McCain and Palin, Christian groups may retain much of their current influence in Washington.

What would that mean for science? Researchers might find that current restrictions limiting the number of embryonic stem cells that can be used in federally funded research would stay in place. The Republican party and Palin both oppose changes to the rules. McCain’s stance, the one that matters most, is less clear. In 2006, he voted for a bill, later vetoed by Bush, that would have ended the restrictions. “He will now be under pressure to change his position,” says Amy Comstock Rick of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research in Washington DC.

In his recent reply to a set of 14 science policy questions put to both candidates, McCain does not commit to lifting federal restrictions on stem cell funding, or even mention them. His campaign declined a request from New Scientist to clarify.

Those concerned about a McCain presidency under the influence of the religious right have even more to worry about when it comes to the US Supreme Court. The court shifted to the right after two recent Bush appointments, and McCain has pledged to continue this trend, which would create a favourable climate for overturning abortion laws and other religiously motivated issues. Lawyers on the religious right are already preparing for such a situation.

This November, voters in Colorado will decide on whether to amend the

state’s constitution so that a “person” would “include any human being from the moment of fertilisation”. The amendment was drafted by Rob Muise and colleagues at the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative religious legal organisation based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. By assigning rights to the embryo, it would probably make both abortion and stem cell research illegal. “I would be appalled if it succeeded,” says Comstock Rick. But that is exactly what Muise is expecting. Pro-choice advocates would challenge the law in court, creating what Muise calls a legislative “train wreck”: a series of appeals by one or both sides that would eventually take the case to the Supreme Court, which by then might have a conservative and anti-abortion majority.

The train-wreck strategy could also reshape the teaching of evolution. McCain has said that intelligent design (ID), the idea that a divine force guided evolution, should “probably not” be taught in science classes. When running for governor of Alaska in 2006, Palin talked about the need to teach both creationism and evolution, but she later said that she would not push school boards to add the former to their curricula. School curricula are set by the committees in charge of the country’s 17,000 local school districts, so the next president will not have a direct say on the issue, but Muise and colleagues have worked on ID cases before and say they would also be keen to take this issue to the Supreme Court.

A decision on ID would probably revolve around whether teaching the subject violated the separation between church and state. Mark Frankel, an expert on science and the law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, says that the court might decide that it did not. He adds, though, that the justices would be well aware that ID was not science and so could qualify their ruling by declaring that the subject should not be taught in science lessons.

Just the possibility of a conservative Supreme Court is enough to make the legal approach attractive to the religious right. Any state ruling could trigger the train wreck Muise is hoping for. And if McCain is president when that happens, the consequences for science could be profound. ●

SOUNDBITES

‹ Stem cell research that would ultimately end in destruction of life, I couldn’t support.›Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin in a 2006 debate during her campaign for governor of Alaska

‹ I refuse to believe the majority of people believe this malarkey.›Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden when asked about intelligent design on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher in 2006

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