REVEREND POTTYMOUTH

Isebrand.com links to a story on the GOP and the Christian right in Ohio from which we learn about this unholy alliance:

...Pastor Rod Parsley hosted two national celebrities of the Christian right for a Central Ohio rally. Professional liberal baiter Ann Coulter -- who's on the cover of this week's Time magazine -- and perennial candidate Alan Keyes came to Parsley's World Harvest Church to help with a flashy launch of the pastor's new book, Silent No More.

Excuse me? Coulter is now a "national celebrity of the Christian right"? I know she's always loved to denounce abortion (in the most graphic, shock-the-bourgeois language possible), but since when is she a woman of God?

Morally, it's far from an exact fit. This is from the Web site of Parsley's Center for Moral Clarity:

Teaching children that their bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit from a young age is key to personal responsibility. Waiting for sex until marriage is a commitment to purity – to being holy vessels God can work through. Children should be taught that they should be holy and consecrated – set apart for a divine purpose – at an early age.

This is Coulter, as portrayed in Time:

"When I first met her," says a fellow conservative, "she was walking around with a black miniskirt and a mink stole, making out with Bob Guccione Jr. in the stairwell." (Coulter dated publisher Guccione, son of the porn mogul, for six months. She says the stairwell story "could be" true, although "I make out in public less often now that I'm publicly recognizable."...)

Here's a Parsley tip for troubled souls:

Have an alcohol problem? www.overcomersoutreach.org

Here's Coulter:

As for living on chardonnay and cigarettes, Coulter says that's "definitely true."

Parsley:

Next, in the chapter entitled "Homosexuality: The Unhappy Gay Agenda," Parsley defines for us "the profile of the new 'political correctness' ... [and] of 'cultural diversity,' 'tolerance,' and 'inclusiveness.'" According to the pastor, those of us in favor of equality will stop at nothing in order to "abolish marriage altogether," instruct all children in homosexual behavior, force "older people' to accept homosexuality, and "expunge a number of passages from [the] Scriptures and rewrite others."  The gay agenda is absurd regardless, Parsley reasons, because "gays [are] turning away from the homosexual life and culture in record numbers."

Coulter:

Coulter ... hardly ever misses the drag queens' Halloween parade in Greenwich Village.

I'm joking about this, but until now there's been a bit of a wall of separation between the secular attack dogs of the right and the preachers, and I wonder if it's about to break down. It's interesting that Rev. Parsley doesn't seem to think any of Coulter's sewer attacks on ideological opponents are un-Christian -- he's not even pretending to worship the Jesus of "turn the other cheek" or forgiveness or love, is he? As for Coulter, I wonder if this could be a wickedly brilliant career move: If she throws in her lot with the preachers, she can attack her opponents by saying they "hate people of faith." If she does that -- and, somewhere along the line, starts writing about religion, and about her "spiritual journey" -- how long do you think it'll be before she's back in the newsweeklies, being profiled under the title "Taking Ann Coulter Seriously"? And Parsley's making it clear that she won't even have to stop accusing her enemies of treason or psychosis or disloyalty by dint of being of Middle Eastern descent -- God thinks that's OK.

If folks like Coulter and, say, Limbaugh increasingly lend their star power to the Christian conservatives, that could make Bible-thumping seem suburban and mainstream. To me that's a scary thought.