Religious Social Movements in the Public Sphere 325
While often allied politically, they also become competitors for resources, tapping the
same sources for funds, volunteers, and attention. Energy expended on differentiating
themselves from other SMOs is that much less energy available for the main mission.
If you cannot easily distinguish the four groups named above, you see the problem in
a nutshell.
These tensions for PSMOs are clearly illustrated by the current dilemmas of the
Christian Coalition (CC), an SMO founded by the evangelist Pat Robertson and dedi-
cated to the issues of the Christian Right. The CC seems to have fallen between the two
stools of galvanizing followers with moral imperatives and being a player in Beltway
politics who can broker deals. Perhaps the crucial moment was the 1996 attempt by
Ralph Reed to keep the CC in the center of the Republican campaign effort, even as the
presidential candidate Robert Dole contemplated backing away from the GOP abortion
plank so as not to antagonize moderates. Reed was criticized severely by social con-
servatives, many of whom were in fact the Coalition’s organizational competition
within the Right. Shortly thereafter he left the organization to become a pure insider –
a paid consultant to Republican politicians. And the Coalition seems to have lost its
way – too grass roots to become just another Beltway lobby, too close to the GOP to
mobilize a movement. From a historical perspective, this may be another example of a
potential third party challenge – by that I mean the Christian Right generally – being
absorbed into one of the major parties.
When organizational forms solidify with greater professionalism and bureaucracy,
it also tends to produce more rigidity in movements’ strategies and tactics. The sit-in,
the boycott, the march, the letter-writing campaign – all are available to almost any
movement, and in fact are used in a great variety of causes. But a given group is likely
to specialize. This hones its abilities, gives it expertise and legitimacy, and provides
visibility – witness the United Farm Workers’ grape boycott or Operation Rescue’s clinic
blockade. By the same token, the signature tactic can lead to ossification and impotence,
as the powers-that-be learn how to respond effectively (McAdam 1983). At the same
time, as movements shift tactics in order to remain effective, they run the risk of leaving
their constituencies behind.
The anti-abortion movement, for example, has adopted increasingly radical and
violent tactics in the face of its failure to achieve its goal. But different people seem
geared for different types of protest. Thus, while there may have been some disaffected
National Right-to-Life Committee people who began blockading clinics with Operation
Rescue, the bulk of the latter’s constituency were not active in more peaceful and legal
protests. Randal Terry’s own story of founding Operation Rescue indicates he was not
involved in the organized lobbying and protest activities of already extant groups (Terry
1988).^2 Similarly, Operation Rescue members have by and large not participated in the
recent violence perpetrated by people associated with groups such as the Lambs of
God, several of whose members are thought to have murdered abortion providers.
Under consistent pressure from the government, Operation Rescue’s clinic-blockade
tactic has been stymied; and the organization has withered accordingly.
(^2) Of course, Terry could have deliberately omitted any reference to action in other groups as a
way of emphasizing the innovation of Operation Rescue. But his expressed disdain for the
strategy of more legal-minded and institutionalized SMOs makes his prior involvement in
those groups seem unlikely. Whatever the case, he certainly did not feel the need to legitimate
his activism by connecting himself with established anti-abortion SMOs.