The "Civility Project" gets off to a shaky start. Evidently, the Tea Partiers breaking up Town Hall meetings aren’t listening.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

By Bill Berkowitz
 
Mark DeMoss, a long-time conservative public relations expert has launched ‘The Civility Project’ which, he claims, calls for civility in the public discourse. Evidently, the Tea Partiers breaking up Town Hall meetings aren’t listening. 
 
This is not the golden age for the Republican Party and its Christian conservative base: “Birthers” rage; Tea Partiers shout down elected representatives at Town Hall meetings; GOP officials are caught sacking their aide’s wife (Sen. Ensign), an Argentine (Gov. Sanford), and anyone he could pay (Sen. Vitter); Joe the Plumber returns from Gaza and briefs GOP lawmakers on Middle Eastern matters; Sarah Palin cuts and runs; congressional Republicans say no to just about everything Obama, including health care reform; Dick Cheney hawks his hawkishness and defends torture, while daughter Lynn, considers running for office (defending torture?); and the old-timers on the Christian Right are selling the same anti-gay, anti-abortion smack. Even former Florida Governor Jeb Bush admitted – in an August Esquire magazine interview with Tucker Carlson – that the Party has lost its way.
 
Bush goes on to tell Carlson that Republicans “haven’t upgraded our message. We haven’t updated it. If you close your eyes and listen to most Republicans, most conservatives, the same speech could have been given in 1990. … If people think our message is outdated, our message is not relevant to the world we live in, and I think a growing number of people may feel that, you lose your relevance.”
 
Mark DeMoss, a long-time Christian Right/GOP-oriented public relations expert whose clients included the Rev. Jerry Falwell, for whom he was chief-of-staff, and Franklin Graham (the son of the Rev. Billy Graham), thinks the entire political landscape is out of whack, and he’s got a better idea; “The Civility Projects,” as summed up in a headline at Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink – “How to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable.”

Recognizing society’s division and polarization, and concerned “about the hate and animosity being aimed at men and women with whom we may disagree on one issue or another,” DeMoss, a conservative Southern Baptist, recently “reached out to some people from various political, racial and religious backgrounds to see if we could join our hearts and minds together in calling others to civility,” he wrote in a statement titled “Welcome to the Civility Project.”
 
Despite his stated goals, DeMoss unfortunately started out on the wrong foot by attacking gays and lesbians.  "I had spent about two years volunteering for Mitt Romney [see “Why evangelicals could support this Mormon”], and I saw a lot of ugly rhetoric and behavior aimed at Mormons and then at me," DeMoss said. "And then the results of the Proposition 8 vote in California [the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage that passed last November’] contributed to my thinking — when you saw gay activists responding to the … vote by vandalizing churches and temples.”
 
DeMoss’ wrong-headed example -- pointing to disgruntled gays and lesbians displaying a lack of civility after Proposition 8 denied them their basic civil rights -- is one-sided, short-sighted, a-historical, and a horrendous way to get started in the civility business. After all, it’s no great secret that over the past several decades, the Religious Right’s fortunes have in part been built on demonizing gays and lesbians. DeMoss recognizing this history might have made for a good starting point.    
 
“The Civility Project," is the brainchild of DeMoss, who is president of the Duluth, Ga.-based public relations outfit called The DeMoss Group. The company, which bills itself on its website as “the largest PR firm specializing in faith-based organizations and causes,” focuses on communications, media relations, marketing, non-profit management, and crisis management.
 
According to its website, “The Civility Project [is] a collection of liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, blacks and whites, and people of various faith — or no faith — who agree that even in sharp disagreement we should not be disagreeable.”
 
Participants are invited to “Take the Civility Pledge,” in which signatories agree to: “be civil in my public discourse and behavior; be respectful of others whether or not I agree with them; stand against incivility when I see it.”
 
DeMoss’ project is supported by Lanny Davis, a tough political combatant who has been a longtime adviser to the Clintons, and who has served three terms on the Democratic National Committee.
 
It’s all about ‘civility’ says DeMoss
 
"I decided to launch a project where I would talk not about unity, not about tolerance, not about getting along, not about compromise, but just about civility," DeMoss added. According to CitizenLink, a news service of Focus on the Family, “DeMoss was so impressed with Davis' civil tone [while he was involved in Hilklary Clinton’s presidential campaign] that he wrote him a letter:
 
"I suspect that politically you and I may have nothing in common,” DeMoss wrote. “But as I've watched you conduct yourself in the public arena, I've always appreciated how you handled yourself, how you handle your adversaries, how you show respect for those who disagree with you, and for modeling civility in an increasingly uncivil town."
 
Davis said that the letter was a surprise: "I'm getting all this hate mail, and I get this amazing letter from a perfect stranger who identifies himself as an evangelical Christian I always try to give deference to somebody who disagrees with me. That is the point Mark made in his letter, that he noticed that about me, that I always try to be respectful of people who are of a different opinion.
 
"The letter was so beautifully written and moved me so greatly. It's now framed on my bookcase."
 
According to CitizenLink, Jim Daly, president and CEO of the post-Dr. James Dobson Focus on the Family, “has repeatedly suggested that his staff invite those who disagree with them to share a cup of coffee — his own civility project.
 
"I use that coffee expression as a real-world way of saying, 'Let's have a conversation, face-to-face, get to know each other and what informs our worldviews,' " he said. "And when we hit a subject on which we don't share the same values, let's talk about those issues with boldness and passion, yes, but with mutual respect, too."

Civility or ‘bigotry with manners?’
 
Candace Chellew-Hodge blogging about The Civility Project for Religion Dispatches, pointed out that perhaps the religious right, was “taking its cue from George Barna's book UnChristian, which calls for conservative Christians to be kinder [and] … soften their rough and often hateful rhetoric, especially toward gays and lesbians.”
 
Regardless of whether DeMoss is sincere in his desire to encourage a more civil politrical debate or he has put his finger to the political winds (the GOP and the Christian Right have hit low points in public opinion polls), Chellew-Hodge also takes note of his having started out on the decidely gay-bashing wrong foot, characterizing his opening volley as “bigotry with manners”:
 
DeMoss has no intention of learning about the person on the other side of the issue. He's not interested in tolerating them, or finding a place of common ground where there can be unity, or compromising on his principles, or even getting along – it's simply about being polite to one another – to not yell at one another, but to still push our own agendas.
 
In short, DeMoss has no interest in dialogue. He has no interest in learning about what those who oppose him think or believe, or even how they arrived at that thought or belief. He just wants them to smile, slap him on the back, and get out of his way while he pursues his agenda. If they don't, then he can paint them as the ‘uncivil’ person or group who is obstructing his progress.
 
Chellew-Hodge points out that in his book “Living Buddha, Living Christ,” Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn, “says true dialogue only exists when both sides are willing to change – so openness and tolerance must be a part of true dialogue.” He writes: “If we think we monopolize the truth and we still organize a dialogue, it is not authentic. We have to believe that by engaging in dialogue with the other person, we have the possibility of making a change within ourselves that we can become deeper.”
 
Jonathan Falwell, the son of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and the Pastor at his late father’s Thomas Road Baptist Church and Vice-Chancellor of Liberty University, wrote that DeMoss’ Civility Project “is not a call for people to surrender their personal beliefs or convictions, nor is it a call to limit free speech.  It is simply an appeal to reason and respectful behavior among conservatives, liberals, moderates and all those in between as we debate and deliberate on the issues that face our nation.”
 
Recently, Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition whose political career took a major hit when his relationship with GOP uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff was made public, founded a new organization called the Faith and Freedom Coalition.  Reed said that his new group would have to be "less strident” than the Christian Coalition was. Concerning Reed’s new project, DeMoss recently told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that “The bottom line is we [Republicans] need everything. Better technology, better organization skills, better messaging, better candidates, better leadership. Ralph is addressing a good part of it, and I believe he’ll probably do good things with it.”
 
In June 2008, in an interview with Beliefnet.com’s Dan Gilgoff, DeMoss pointed out that it was a mistake for Sen. John McCain to reject “the endorsements” of Texas Pastor John Hagee and Ohio Pastor Rod Parsley, two powerful Christian Right leaders that have been responsible for more than their fair share of uncivil statements. 
 
Is it uncivil to ask whether DeMoss or Reed’s efforts are solely the result of the political realities the conservbative movement is facing? If the conservative movement were doing better, would there be more targeted attacks and less civility?
 
How will the third point in the civility pledge manifest itself? Does it mean that when former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin gives a speech, Ann Coulter writes a column, Rush Limbaugh broadcasts, and Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Lou Dobbs take to the air, civility project folk will be monitoring their speech? Will the project comment on the current GOP/Insurance lobby-sponsored tactic of shouting down -- read that, breaking up -- town hall meeting in the districts of Democratic Party Congressional representative tactic?    
 
In the end, civility may too much of an amorphous concept, somewhat akin to pornography. To paraphrase a Supreme Court justice, "I don't know what it is, but I recognize it when I hear it." 

A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

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