Political Parties: Are they factions, pt III

Political parties try to balance different interests. We see in chapter one that conservativism in the social realm is not the same as conservativism in the economis realm. social conservatives and economic conservatives tend to vote Republican, but all parties have to work to keep their groups united.

Sunday's (2.6.06) Washington Postcarried an article The Greening of Evangelicals, which indicates the balancing act that Republicans must work on to keep winning elections. the article reports about the adoption of an

"Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility" that, for the first time, emphasized every Christian's duty to care for the planet and the role of government in safeguarding a sustainable environment.

"We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part," said the statement, which has been distributed to 50,000 member churches. "Because clean air, pure water, and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation."

Signatories included highly visible, opinion-swaying evangelical leaders such as Haggard, James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries. Some of the signatories are to meet in March in Washington to develop a position on global warming, which could place them at odds with the policies of the Bush administration, according to Richard Cizik, the association's vice president for governmental affairs

We'll do more with this in chapters 7 and 8, on interest groups and parties.