The religious right faces its purgatory

WASHINGTON -- There were signs of a backlash against the religious right even before the Rev. Pat Robertson declared that God may have caused Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke to punish him for giving up the Gaza Strip.

The national debate over President Bush's nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court has been raging for two months; nary a religious right figure has been in sight. Religious rightists rallied their own supporters at a ''Justice Sunday" this week, but they stayed out of the national fray. This suggests that the White House doesn't want Alito associated with the religious right, because it would alienate moderates.

Meanwhile, a federal judge appointed by President Bush last month delivered a hammer blow to the intelligent-design theory, the religious right's latest vehicle for undermining the teaching of evolution. The judge declared that the intelligent-design theory, which posits that the development of man cannot be explained by evolution alone, is religion posing as science. He ruled that the Dover, Pa., school board that ordered that the science curriculum be changed to incorporate intelligent design was acting to promote religion, not education.

Rather than express outrage, some key supporters of the religious right chose to distance themselves. The day after the decision came down, Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, announced that he was resigning from the advisory board of the Thomas More Law Center, which defended the Dover school board.

Santorum, in the midst of a tough reelection campaign, must have noticed that almost all supporters of intelligent design were voted off the Dover school board in November. As it happens, the Dover election prompted one in a series of warnings from Robertson.

''I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover, if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson declared on his TV show, ''The 700 Club."

Robertson clearly believes in revenge. He has apologized for saying that the United States should assassinate President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela for his anti-American views. He has suggested that God sent Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans to punish the United States for its acceptance of abortion.

And last week, Robertson compared Sharon to the former Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who endorsed the concept of a Palestinian state, and who was slain by an Israeli extremist. Robertson said that God was furious with them for dividing Israel.

''God says, 'This land belongs to me. You'd better leave it alone,' " Robertson said.

Robertson, whose TV show debuted in 1966 and now has a million viewers daily, was among the evangelists who brought Christianity into politics in the 1980s.

Robertson himself ran for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination. But his candidacy was undermined by scandals at other television ministries. The Rev. Jim Bakker admitted to an adulterous affair. Two months later, the Rev. Jimmy Swaggert was photographed entering a Louisiana motel with a prostitute.

Donations declined at many ministries and the movement floundered for a decade. But it gained strength again in the late 1990s, and has been a central part of President Bush's political coalition. The Republicans used church membership lists to help organize the 2004 campaign, and Bush's victory was widely ascribed to the turnout of religious Christians.

Last year began with many politicians trying to retool their messages to appeal to the religious right, and with Christian conservatives demanding action on their social agenda. The clout of the religious right was put on display when Bush and both houses of Congress rushed back from Easter recess to allow courts to block the removal of a feeding tube from Terri Schiavo.

Large majorities of the public disapproved of the move, however, and Republican approval ratings dropped immediately afterwards.

The current backlash against the religious right is different from the one in the late 1980s. Back then, the focus was on the misdeeds of preachers, suggesting televangelists were the modern-day equivalents of the religious charletons of the past. Now, the backlash is predominantly political -- a frank disagreement with the policies of the religious right and concern about its extremism.

The Republican presidential field for 2008 includes more moderates than conservatives, and is led at the moment by Arizona Senator John McCain, a longtime critic of the religious right.

Robertson's recent series of declarations, including his comments about Sharon, have sparked denunciations from many Democrats and silence from fellow Republicans: For now, even Robertson's allies are leaving him alone.

Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond.