There's a disturbing article in The Nation about the Governor's Program on Abstinence in the state of Louisiana; partly funded out of federal tax dollars, the GPA, which is merely supposed to encourage sexual purity, openly embraces right-wing religion and works to helps young abstainers learn the legislative process so they can continue fighting the good fight for theocracy and against condoms.

The program used to pay religious organizations outright; it can't do that now, after a judge imposed restrictions in a 2002 court case. Now it merely pays individuals whose life's work is conservo-Christianity:

Last year the Rev. Billy McCormack, known for his political support of former Klansman David Duke in the 1980s, received a grant. Grantees funded through June of this year include John Hogue, founder of the Louisiana Christian Coalition, and the Rev. Bill Shanks, who leads the local chapter of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue. At least eight grantees receiving funds through June are affiliated with crisis pregnancy centers that counsel against abortion....

While the program for the [program's] April conference makes no mention of their religious affiliations, most presenters and speakers there also work for religious institutions, including the keynote presenter, Jacob Aranza, a founding pastor at Our Savior's Church; Clifton LeJeune, pastor of the Jesus Worship Center; Christian rockers Kelly Pease and Joshua Blakesley; and Sidney Hidalgo, children's pastor at a place called the Harvest, a Christian ministry whose mission includes "evangeliz[ing] the unchurched while adoring God."

Even [Dee] Burbank, officially the GPA's medical consultant, clearly has faith-based reasons for her positions.... [D]uring a videotaped interview with Father M. Jeffery Bayhi, which is available over the Internet, she makes her religious reasons for opposing extramarital sex clear. "There's no way around God's best plan for us," she tells Bayhi, who works for Closer Walk Ministries, a Catholic group devoted to "proclaiming the great mercy of God." One-night stands and casual sex, she goes on to say, "are not the deep loving encounters that God had planned."

And although the governor of Louisiana is a Democrat, the information on the Governor's Program's Web site would make a yellow-dog Republican feel right at home: Click on "Library," then "Medical Info," then "Safe Sex?" and you'll find 21 articles from 2005. Sources for these articles include National Review, TownHall.com, The Washington Times, Concerned Women for America, the Baptist Press's BPNews.net, Focus on the Family's Family.org, World Net Daily, the anti-abortion news outfit LifeSite, and C-list right-wing news sites Michigan News and the Washington Dispatch.

And the program works to produce advocates who'll fight for it and programs like it in the future:

...The governor's program holds a yearly legislative caucus that ... is held at the capitol. At it, teens sit in legislators' seats and mull over mock legislation, learning, according to GPA materials, "how to debate and pass legislation and how to maneuver through parliamentary procedures."

Or, as Curtis Lipscomb, who attended this year's caucus, puts it: "We debated over pretend bills about sex." Many proposals deal directly with the issue of teaching abstinence, though the conference--held this year on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision--also hones teens' debating skills on other favorite culture-war topics, including abortion....

When Odessey Terzi attended the legislative meeting two years ago, she made the case for a mock law that would require condom packages to warn that they're not effective against all STDs. Terzi, a college student who also went to the meeting in April, says she is majoring in political science and planning on attending law school so she can become a politician and push for legislation that, like the GPA, furthers traditional values. If she does reach higher office, says Terzi, "I would definitely work to continue to promote funding for a program like this."...

This is somewhat reminiscent of the work of Mike Farris, who's turning out politically savvy soldiers of the right at Patrick Henry College and (as ABC News noted this evening) at the Generation Joshua summer camp in Virginia.

Observers of the right have noted that it's trying to reach many of its goals -- repeal of the estate tax, for instance -- in a stepwise manner, in the hope that the gradually boiled frog that is America won't quite notice the heat being turned up. Obviously, the anti-abortion movement has given up on in-your-face militancy and is patiently waiting for the Supreme Court majority that will overturn Roe. I think we're seeing a similarly patient campaign to put America under a generalized Christian shariah -- a campaign being conducted through small steps. This campaign may take a generation or more -- and these folks are not going to settle voluntarily for half-measures.